Ghost Stories
by Shadsie
Summary: Owain's life was filled with stories. His parents liked to say that their romance was a ghost-tale - an ethereal priest anchored by a lively spirit. His happy childhood became a horror novel, his adolescence a survivor's account. As he stepped back in time, he was determined to create a rewrite - for his parents and the world. Darkfic with hope.
1. Neverending Stories

_Disclaimer and Notes: Fire Emblem belongs to Nintendo. I seek no profit. Story started because the main pairing is a rare one that I happen to like and had on one of my files. I have not played, as yet, any of the Fire Emblem games other than Awakening and Fates; therefore I am a little lost on some of the specifics of the heroic tales that Owain would know from the FE universe. This does not preclude me using nerdy references from other universes when I will deem them fit, nor from exhaustively researching a reference if I need to._

Multiple chapters. I am posting chapters as I write them, but I have the story-direction outlined.

* * *

 **GHOST STORIES**

 **A Fire Emblem Awakening Fan Fiction by Shadsie**

 **Chapter 1: Neverending Stories**

Owain was born into a world of stories. He grew up with myths of the gods and the legends of martyrs, various parables and symbolic reckonings of the journey of the spirit courtesy of his father. He grew up with tales of the royal line courtesy of his mother. As he learned to read, he had access to the royal library. He and his many siblings often took trips to the theater for holidays and more frequently than not, to see one of his parents' friends dance to music that some of his parents' other friends played as she took on starring roles in classic narratives.

He always knew that he was different than his many brothers and sisters. This was because he was the one child that his parents had "made." Up until he was age six or seven (he could not recall exactly when he'd "grown up"), he thought that being "made" meant that they had molded him out of clay and had prayed to the gods to give him life. Owain did not get this story from his parents or from anyone else. He had made it up. It seemed like the best explanation for his existence until the older children in the big group-home started making fun of him and telling him another story. The boy was aware from an early age that babies lived inside their mothers for a time before being born, for his father and mother provided shelter for women in need who were growing children inside of them, but he had created an elaborate story in his young and forming mind that involved said mothers praying on clay talismans. When they gave their children names, the soul entered and such was the same with anything that was named. The latter belief persisted for longer, to the point that a name being equal to a soul was something he carried into his adult life.

This, of course, left him quite confused that any parent ever changed their mind about keeping a child after making one until the story was set straight for him. As he grew, he overheard his parents talking about biology with the older children and he thought it was gross. The stray cats that the orphanage-family had made into pets hadn't sculpted or prayed upon clay to have their kittens and this confirmed things.

Then again, Owain made up many stories for himself and his friends that weren't really true and threw his heart into them anyway. All of his friends who were not being reared at the orphanage wanted to be like their parents, who told war-stories around reunion-feast tables, recounting times they had saved each other, pulling each other out of impossible odds. Lord Chrom's bravery as he charged into battle. Frederick's staunch protection. Tactician Robin's tipping of the scales in their favor even when the Ylissean army was well-outnumbered. Tales of healers – his parents among them – taking wounds as they treated the wounded. Dad still had a slight limp in his left leg. Owain was supped on all of these.

These tales were celebrations of survival. Sometimes, the stories were somber. Owain's mother and father were adamant that they did not want him to ever know war. At the same time, they allowed him to train for it when he was deemed old enough to hold a weapon in an open yard under supervision. He wanted to learn swords because he was impressed with Uncle Chrom's tricks and the legendary Falchion that was bonded to him. Lissa and Libra's greatest wish for their son, on the other hand, was to only know the stories and to never require the use of a sword beyond a prince's duty to learn it. The tales of heroism were tempered with tales of blood and death.

He had an aunt that he never knew who was a martyr. She had been killed for her commitment to peace. It had caused a terrible war to drag on. This war was how his parents had met – his father being the last survivor of a group of failed would-be saviors of the saint. His mother was a medical cleric, his father a war monk – a priest trained to fight. Owain's mother eventually trained with the axe, as well, after Uncle Chrom wanted her to be able to defend herself. So went the story. Owain wondered, as he grew older, why she did not choose another weapon, such as magical tomes, given her slight frame. Axes and war-hammers were the "least delicate" weapons she could think of, she'd told him with a giggle and she was sick to death of being thought of as "delicate." It had also been her way of getting closer to Father. They'd begun bonding over long hours in the medical tents of their constantly moving camp, healing the injured and the sick. This had developed into a crush on his mother's part even as his father remained unsure of himself. Asking to train with him and having long hours training together in addition to working together as healers had sealed Owain's eventual creation.

It was two wars that Mother and Father had fought in. The first was The Second Ylissean / Plegian War, also known as "Mad Gangrel's War." The one following on its heels was the Ylissean / Valm war, also known as "Walhart's Aggression." Owain grew up with great pride in knowing that his parents and their friends had secured freedom and peace for him and his friends. His mother was a princess, to boot – only giving up a life in the palace to help Father run the orphanage they'd created in the capital city. This was why Owain had many siblings to share games and stories with. The orphanage was funded by the royal treasury so that the household never suffered want. Trips to the palace were frequent – more frequent for just Owain and his parents than for the entire household and the hired assistants, but everyone who stayed in the home even on a temporary basis got to see the castle halls. Among Owain's friends were the sons and daughters of knights and his cousins – Lucina the crown princess and the princeling, Morgan.

He created the Justice Cabal, a group of elite friends, a fellowship to combat evil wherever it reared its ugly head or multiple heads. He devised training exercises for them to keep them sharp for the eventual combat of evil. Owain was quite offended when his friends referred to them as "games."

There were the true tales, too. Owain found himself the leader of many stories in the play-yard and hall of Saint Emmeryn's Orphanage (the name his home had been given in honor of his martyr-aunt), but some of the more interesting and darker stories he learned were the true ones given by his brothers and sisters. Many of his compatriots were true orphans – both of their parents had died during the wars or from sicknesses or accidents. A few had been rescued by his family's knight-friends from homes they were better off not in. One of his sisters said that her father giving her up was "the best thing for her." He did not know what a "prostitute" was for a long time, but when he'd learned what being one entailed (and that children were not crafted of clay and prayers, or even, in every case, from love), he understood that life with his family was better, in most cases, than the life of a prostitute's child in a world that was hard and cold.

It confused Owain to no end that some visitors expected his father to be judgmental of the women they sometimes housed when he was not in the least. He would say something like "Some priests have done more dubious things in seeking what is holy than most people have seeking mere survival" to anyone who expected that he should turn anyone away or offer help only with a catch. More often than not, adults looking for help were referred straight to Lord Chrom and Lady Robin for aid in finding housing, work and general care for themselves and their to-be babies. Sometimes, one of these women would leave the child to his father's "collection of needy souls." Sometimes, they left, baby in tow, grateful for help and off to a hopefully pleasant life.

Some of the kids in the home only stayed for a season, given up by farmers whose crops had failed and needed one or two or three fewer mouths to feed for just a year or two before they had better luck, then the kids would get to go back to their "real homes." These lost friends visited every once in a while. The same happened to those children who were lucky enough to be adopted out. It seemed to Owain that his family was always growing because everyone who left would come back eventually for a visit, sometimes with gifts.

The extended family of Mother and Father's friends also brought gifts. The favorite honorary uncle was Gaius, who always had candy in tow. Father would get a visible headache whenever Uncle Gaius dropped by. Owain was always the first to beg him for honey nut cakes…

… And for stories. He begged for stories from all of his parents' friends.

For a while, he liked Henry and Tharja's the best – tales of sorcery and horror intrigued him the most. His mother nearly smacked his hand off when he tried to take one of Auntie Tharja's tomes. His father took him aside and prayed with him for the protection of his soul as if a mere book could be dangerous.

This only fed young Owain's wonder.

And so Owain's first taste of life was sweet – spent in a large home full of excitement and the collective imagination of many. His mother joined in with his games, a big kid herself. His father drew pictures of the monsters and heroes he created after reading one book or another or hearing some tale that inspired him to create his own. He kept a picture in his personal treasure-box that his father had painted of him in dress armor fighting an evil dragon with the Divine Dragon Naga at his back – a symbol of his destiny to be a light against darkness and a reminder of his heritage as a scion of heroes.

He kept that piece rolled up in his knapsack when he lived as a refugee with the remnants of humanity in the days when his cousin became his commander after a dark dragon had leapt out of nightmares and books to become a reality.

His mother told him that she had fallen in love with her father because he was "like a ghost" – a melancholy ethereal vision, someone whose calm and kindness struck her as otherworldly. He, in turn, had spoken of how his mother's lively nature kept him grounded to the earth.

Owain kept all these memories after his siblings, friends, Father and Mother became nothing but ghosts in his heart.


	2. From a History Book

**GHOST STORIES**

 **Chapter 2: From a History Book**

"Back, miscreants! Surrender now, before you taste the soul-thirsty blade and fall to the mighty sword-hand of Owain Dark!"

A young man stood before a small family home. Within its doorway was a single priest, one of the few people who had been unable to evacuate when the bandit-horde had stormed in. He and others from the local temple were trying to secure and heal wounded townsfolk. The family who lived in the home and their immediate neighbors were barricaded down in the cellar. The citizens who could flee the town had already done so while the rest were relying on the valor of a lone swordsman who fought like a demon.

Owain whirled, taking on a bandit to the right of him, then to the left of him. He had taken a few cuts, mild enough not to bother him although the priest behind him insisted upon trying to heal him.

"Don't come out!" Owain cried, noting that the man was too far from him for the staff he was presently holding to work. "I am like the darkness itself! I feel no pain!"

The last part wasn't true, but what was true was that his adrenaline was up. Red streamed down his arms and colored the side of his coat, but he knew that he would not feel these injuries in full force until he got a chance to rest. The salty sweat that was running into his eyes bothered him more. He had to keep a line of sight open.

He forced one assailant to retreat – a combination of a disarming injury and a fierce battle-cry. Others he left injured and cursing on the ground. He'd fatally stabbed two of them. Owain wasn't yet accustomed to killing living people, "real" people. He'd taken his first life some months ago soon after finding himself in a field – in defense of a merchant under threat from a similar gang of bandits. He tried not to think about it too much. Functionally, it wasn't much different than killing a Risen. Philosophically, it was another matter entirely – he had to weigh the costs in his mind and regretted that his opponent had been relentless, not one that he could have chased off. Owain did his best to frighten away the current enemy with battle-cries and boasts, but in the end, did what it took to protect the unarmed civilians.

In many ways, these men were worse than Risen. Risen were shells, flesh-puppets animated by dark energy and some fragment of their former selves. The ones that were not corpses of the freshly-slain were cobbled-together monstrosities. The generals were knit together from dark magic and from the parts of many bodies, their stitched faces contorted as if giving a constant war-cry, even as they usually only hissed and gurgled or uttered the most simplistic of sentences. Some oozed up out of the ground, rotted puddles of fetid liquid with only the barest of flesh clinging to the bone. Risen didn't have a will of their own. They were controlled by whatever Grimleal priest had control of them or by Grima, himself. The bandits had free-agency.

There was a farmer dying in the cellar of the house that Owain was protecting – stabbed through the gut. The young swordsman couldn't hear his groans anymore over the din of battle. There was also a young boy with multiple shallow stab-wounds in the extremities from a dagger when three men fell upon him for daring to stand his ground in trying to protect his family's goats. There was a girl with some cuts on her – the raiders had tried to take her with them to be their plaything and Owain had managed to free her. The guy who'd held a knife to her throat had lost his head. His partner had dealt the blow into Owain's side that was the source of the stain through his coat.

Owain was certain that he had made it to the past. He hadn't seen anything that had been confirming of a particular place on the calendar of history just yet, but the sheer amount of living people told him that Naga's Gate had taken him…somewhere that was not his own world. Even when people were stealing from and killing other people, there were people. For many years of his own life, Owain saw the living defending themselves from and hiding from the dead – and every day, the living grew fewer.

His attention was caught when he heard noise from the other end of town. That was when he saw his confirmation cresting a hill. He heard the clattering of a great knight on horseback first, followed by cavaliers and bow knights, then, he spied them, a pair of swordsmen. One was a swordswoman, her mop of dark blue hair unmistakable, even at a distance. Lucina – the intrepid leader of Owain's expedition into the past and beloved cousin. She was keeping close to a blue-haired man. Owain hadn't seen his Uncle Chrom since he was little. The man looked younger than when he'd last remembered – more like the paintings that had hung in Ylisstol palace before it was destroyed.

"Forward, friends!" the commander shouted. Yep - that was Uncle Chrom – a man long dead, charging into battle like a scene out of a history book.

A pair of giant rabbits crested the hill. The one in pink armor decisively kicked a mounted bandit off his horse. The one in the blue armor quavered and cried out, begging not to be hit, only to follow suit with tackling another mounted bandit, incurring no injury to himself. Owain's heart swelled. It was nice to see that Yarne had made it through the Gate safely. He's been afraid that it was going to burn off all his fur and melt him, leaving his race extinct.

As Owain bested a bearded swordsman in plate armor, his line of sight fell to a tall figure with a swinging mop of blond hair. The figure grunted and, in one fluid move, managed to brace the long handle of a very large battleaxe over the head of an assailant and butt his body against the enemy, sending him falling to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Owain was sure that if he'd been in close proximity that he would have heard the neck-crack. Perhaps it was a less messy way of killing with an axe than a beheading or sending the blade through a skull, but it was a close-quarter tactic that Owain had seldom witnessed.

And for personal reasons, witnessing it was a little bit shocking – in a similar way that feeling his own clean sword pierce a living chest was shocking. Intellectually, he knew that it had happened. Seeing it first-hand was a different matter.

A woman in a heavy coat with white hair-tails was in the middle of it all, barking orders and bringing up vibrant circular spells into the air from a spell-tome. She pointed to the large man with the axe and then pointed toward Owain.

Time seemed to slow down as the man hung his axe on a holster on his back and jogged toward him, bringing a long healing-stave off another back-holster.

"Hold still for just a moment and I shall heal you."

"Th-thanks," Owain said numbly as his eyes met the eyes of his father. Of course, the latter did not know this. It was apparent that Lucina hadn't sighted him yet, or at least hadn't informed everyone of who he was as of the moment. Owain felt the familiar healing wave go through him as Libra lifted the stave and mouthed prayers to work light-magic.

A thousand thoughts ran through Owain's head all at once, to the point that they swirled into a kind of silence, images and feelings with no distinct sound. The last time Owain had seen his father came immediately to mind as the "ghost" was flesh and blood before him. The image of his father's pale face and dressed hair as he was laid out for funerary rites, graceful even in death was like a punch to the chest and he tried to shake it away. The sting of his knitting cuts followed by a soothing sensation brought memories of every time he's gotten a cut or scrape playing with his siblings and friends and his father had fussed over him. He was so much taller then, but the man was still huge – with those big, broad shoulders that had always made Owain puzzle when people mistook his father for female despite his baby-face skin and long hair.

Those pretty eyes – ones that Owain remembered shining with a father's love gave him only the gaze of a stranger. A flood came of all those days of sitting on Libra's knee as he had stories read to him and the letters and pronunciations picked out for him, days of being taught prayers at the family altar – including prayers for the well-being of the souls of enemies along with the prayers for household and national protection. Owain was to be "of Naga" for the sake of being in the Exalted line, so these prayers were always important, Father had said, even as Owain would grow bored, eager to go outside and chase "Beano the Barbarian Queen" – Cynthia - around the local forest.

And just like that, the healing was over and the ghost vanished. Libra dashed to another part of the battlefield as Robin shouted at him, lost to the din and the dust.

"Hey, is your name Owain?"

Owain turned at the sudden voice, jerked out of his daydreams. He almost yelped "Aunt Robin!" before biting his lip. The short woman in the big dark coat looked puzzled, which was probably merely a mirror of his own expression.

He braced his right hand out before him and struck a dramatic bent-leg pose. "So, my reputation precedes me! You have heard of my name echoed upon the hills – Owain Dark, the most calamitous of heroes! I am at your service, my lady!"

"You know a 'Lucina,' correct? She pointed you out to us. You were most brave in defending this village, but we thought you could use a little help."

"Owain needs no aid!"

"Oh, I beg to differ!" the mage said. "You were holding up very well, but lone heroes rarely win against overwhelming numbers, even ones with your impressive skill. My name is Robin and these are the Shepherds – the advance-force of the army of Ylisse. I'm their tactician."

Owain smiled. "I know…Aunt Robin. Lucina's my cousin – and there's Yarne and Noire and Brady… I'm pretty sure I saw Morgan, too. I guess if most of us are here, there's no need to explain that we're intrepid souls who sailed across the sea of Time with the nostrils of Death breathing at our backs to beat back evil and change the river of Fate!"

Robin laughed softly. "Lucina said that you were…inventive. Stay by my side. We'll clean up and we'll get you properly introduced to your parents, then."

The battle was soon over. Any bandits that were not dead were ordered to be bound and watched until proper measures of justice could be decided for them. After greeting Lucina, Owain headed to the house he'd been defending and down into the cellar. Wounded civilians groaned as the healers among the Shepherds tended to them. Lissa spoke calmly to the boy who'd suffered stab-wounds as she dressed them and took up a Mend staff. Libra was entirely focused upon doing surgery upon the unconscious and nearly-gutted fat farmer as the man's wife wept and stroked his hair. A pair of twin girls kneeled at his side, hugging each other to avoid looking at the wound and the surgery and softly crying for their daddy.

"I'm not gonna hurt ya, geez!" Brady complained as another girl with cuts – the one that Owain had directly rescued - shied away from him. "I know I look plum-awful, but I'm as gentle as a lamb!"

"Believe him," Owain said with a smirk. "I know the guy. Brady of the Tender Heart once cried a river that wended all the way from Regna Ferox to the southern Plegian Sea!"

"I did not!" Brady protested, and then looked back to the girl. "Hold still, will ya?"

"There, you're gonna be alllll right!" Lissa said enthusiastically to her patient. "Here ya go… you get a candy for being so brave." She pulled a small toffee out of a bag on her hip. The child smiled meekly.

Owain couldn't help but smile, himself. She carried candies to coax reluctant patients even in this time. Libra, meanwhile, was focused on the details of what he was doing. His hands were coated in blood as the farmer he was working on grunted and sweat even in his passed-out state. He tied off a final suture and took up his staff. He closed his eyes gracefully and eloquently mouthed a prayer. The staff glowed and for a moment, Owain thought that he was looking at a ghost. His father always did look ethereal when doing a very serious, deep healing.

"He'll live," he told the frantic farmwife. "He needs to be kept warm and your local healers should observe him in the coming days."

"Thank you! Oh, thank you!" she cried.

He turned to a pitcher and basin that had been set out upon a table and carefully washed his hands.

Soon, all eyes were on Owain. "The swordsman!" the little bandaged boy said in awe. "Hey, Momma, that's the guy who saved us!"

"About time you showed up," Brady groused. "We were lookin' all over for ya!"

"Over hill and dale!" Yarne (now back to his humanoid form) added. "We were worried you'd met with extinction!"

"Hey!" Lissa chimed, "You were very brave out there…whoever you are!"

She was young. Owain remembered his mother as fairly small. She towered over him when he was tiny. He had some vague memories of tugging at her skirts and begging her to let him ride on her shoulders or, better yet, boost him up to ride on Dad. Her height-advantage on him did not last long, however. By the time he was ten, he had shot up like a weed and had outpaced her by a good inch – and was still growing. The last time he had seen her, she was just about the size she was now, her head barely reaching his chest, but not quite as young in the face. She'd had slight furrows in the brow and lines about the eyes – care-lines from several hard years.

The very last time he had seen her, she had been crying and bidding farewell and wishing good luck to him, her features bathed in the cool blue light of the holy portal. She could not come with him. She had, with Lucina, done the necessary ritual to contact Naga and Naga had made it clear that one living mortal was necessary to anchor the time-stream. Lissa, the last survivor of the original Shepherds, had chosen to sacrifice herself for the task.

Owain had left her to a dead world. Risen were pounding on the temple doors when he'd stepped through. The fate of his mother in the future was technically unknown to him, but sealed all the same. He had lingered as all of his surviving friends went ahead of him. He was reaching out to try to wipe a tear from his mother's cheek, ignoring his own when her image faded from his vision and the light of the Gate shattered into countless blue fragments. He was lucky that his sword hand had not been cut off in the transfer.

"Mother!" Owain gasped.

"Huh? What?" the young medical cleric yelped as the young man grabbed her in a fierce hug, picking her up off the floor, laughing for joy. "I've missed you! You… you draw breath among the land of the living! The most gracious and compassionate of princesses. It is I, Owain, your very son! The scion of heroes and challenger of destiny!"

"Wait, what is going on here?" she asked, pulling herself away, forcing him to drop her. Luckily for her, she landed firmly upon her feet.

Lucina regarded Owain and Lissa with a deadpan expression. "I warned you that he was rather…colorful. This is Owain, Aunt Lissa. He's your son in the future."

"My son? Really? Oh, wow!"

Libra finished washing himself up and turned around, his face in a stoic frown. Lissa gave him a withering glare.

"Who do you THINK I'd have a son by, Libra?"

"I…I have a son," the large man said with a shaking breath and a sense of disbelief.

"Father!" Owain exclaimed, rushing him in a fierce hug. Libra cried out in panic and frantically tried to pry the swordsman off him.

"Ha, uh! Huff!" Libra grunted, shaking. Lissa grabbed Owain by the arm and pried him loose.

"Don't touch him!" she said firmly. "He…he…"

Owain shrunk back. "I'm sorry," he said sheepishly, his eyes filled with shame. "I got a little overexcited. I… kind of forgot."

"I did not hurt you, did I?" Libra worried, his eyes wide over his own actions.

"It's my fault," Owain apologized. "I know that you have issues with personal space. You could always lend a healing touch but had problems when it was the other way around… It's just that…"

Libra gave him a hopeful look, his eyes darting between the young man and Lissa.

"You get better, Father," Owain said, looking him in the eye. "In the future…you… the other you, anyway. You still spooked now and again if someone approached you quickly or from behind, but… you started losing your fears… well, at least enough for me and all my brothers and sisters to climb all over you." Owain gave him a Cheshire smile.

Libra looked at him starkly. "Brothers and sisters?"

Owain shrugged. "Sort of. I mean, you and Mother made me, but there were lots of kids in our house that you adopted. I mean… that kind of happens when you run an orphanage."

The people in the cellar watched as the tall priest quivered slightly, a tear falling from his left cheek. They were fairly confused by all this "in the future" talk, but left the Shepherds alone to it, just grateful to be alive after the events of the day.

Owain nodded. He was being uncharacteristically serious, something that Lucina seemed to notice as she stared at him. He, in turn, worried if he was giving away too much of the future.

"Its okay, Owain, you can tell them," she said.

"You built an orphanage in the capital after the war – this war… We're in Valm, right? You and Mother named it Saint Emmeryn's."

"Wow, Libra!" Lissa said, "Just think of that! We totally have a son… and we have more! I guess my dreams for a big family really will happen!"

"I… I get better," Libra said with a smile. "I guess I really do get better."

Owain tried to remain stoic around all of the villagers he'd saved, to present them with the proper look for a grim hero, but he could not help but sniffle and honk while smiling broadly.

"I've found my family again… I'm… I'm… Owain, Hero of the Ages is home!"


	3. Poetry of Despair

**GHOST STORIES**

 **Chapter 3: Poetry of Despair**

"Hey, kiddo, let me show you something neat!"

Young Owain followed his uncle out to the edge of the forest. Henry was not a relation to his parents by either blood or law, but was given the honorary place of Uncle to him for being a close family-friend. He had been a comrade to his parents when they'd fought in the wars, an unlikely recruit from Plegia who had joined the Ylissean forces not because of political opinions but simply because it had amused him. He'd found fighting for Ylisse more interesting and had bonded to Lord Chrom's Shepherds.

Even still, Uncle Henry's outlook on life and meaning was quite different from that of Owain's parents – his father's especially, yet they were kindred-spirits in a way. From stories they told him, each of them, respectively, did not have the kind of childhood that was being given to him. They'd both been survivors of abuse and had simply taken different paths to coping with their memories of it. Whenever Uncle Henry would visit, he and Father had a sort of balancing effect on one another – something interesting to behold. Then again, from what he'd heard, Henry was much mellower these days than he'd been in wartime – a dark mage, cruel in battle, was unknown to Owain – instead, Uncle Henry was the doting father of one of his best friends.

"I've seen the crows before," Owain complained as Henry summoned his flock of friends to him. They darted out of the woods to land upon his shoulders and outstretched hands – one upon his head - and several by his feet.

The animals did not frighten Owain like they did most of his brothers and sisters. Little Clara would run and hide behind his father's legs whenever Henry called them if she was present. Shannon, one of the older boys – and the only orphan from Plegia in the home - would constantly chase them away from their refuse bins with a broom and complain about how dirty they were, whether or not the crows hanging around were Henry's. His mother seemed to be indifferent to them. On one hand, she was fascinated that Henry could talk to them – or at least claimed to – and was even more amazed when he'd revealed that he'd taught a few of them simple Ylissean words, but she preferred pretty songbirds. His father had, perhaps, the strangest reaction. He made no claims to understanding the languages of animals like Henry did, but he would talk to Henry's crows gently, let them perch upon his shoulders and staffs – and would preach the good news of the compassion of Naga to them. After Henry had spoken to him about how hard birds have it in the winter and how much they need fluffy things to line their nests, Father had taken to cleaning out his hairbrushes to leave strands of his own silky hair out in the yard for any birds that might need it.

Owain had heard a story from Aunt Cherche that his father had once befriended a mole in a similar manner. He got on well enough with her wyvern. Minerva hadn't tried eating one of the kids yet.

"You haven't seen Luna lately, nya-hah-ha!" Henry chuckled. He bent down and cocked his head toward a small crow that was hopping by his boot. He gently brushed her body with one hand, ushering her toward Owain.

"Somethin' seems wrong with her," the child observed. She let out a croak – somehow slightly deeper and darker than a crow's usual harsh caw, a sound that was more groaning.

That's when Owain saw a section of rib-cage poking through a disheveled mass of feathers on her chest. He jumped back.

"She's hurt!" Owain yelped. "Do you want me to get Mom and Dad to heal her?"

"She's not hurt, nya-ha!" Henry asserted. "She's dead. I used a spell to bring her back. She doesn't talk to me like she used to. The real Luna is on the Other Side now, but she's still got a little bit of herself left."

"That's scary, Uncle Henry."

Owain backed away from the bird but noticed that she did nothing but hop about and peck at the ground. She gave him a quizzical look with eyes that had a slight red glow.

"She's not gonna last much longer like this," his uncle said. "I'll have to bury her soon. I just wanted her around a little while longer. She has such nice, shiny feathers. Brady cried so much when she died that I had to bring her back for him, even if it's not the real her. He's too young to now the difference yet."

"She's not gonna steal my soul when I sleep?"

"No, kiddo. She's perfectly harmless. And armless! Get it? She's a bird… she has wings instead of arms!"

Owain laughed.

"Just don't tell your Mom and Pop about this. It's our secret, okay?"

"Okay, Uncle Henry."

"Owaiiiin! Henry! Come in for dinner!" Lissa called across the field from the main house.

That was the first time that Owain had seen a Risen. He'd never forget it. 

* * *

The end of the world began, as many things began in Owain's family, with his Aunt Robin. Tensions rose between Ylisse and Plegia again when the new priest-king of Plegia laid claim upon Robin as his daughter and therefore claimed her as the legal crown princess of Plegia. Robin already was queen-consort of Exalt Chrom and thus belonged, by her own choice, to Ylisse. King Validar of Plegia presented evidence for Robin's parentage in the form of meticulous genealogies and criminal reports regarding kidnapping by her late mother, including some witness records his people had managed to glean from Ylisse / Plegian boarder refugee camps. In short, he demanded that either she be returned to Plegia or the Fire Emblem given to him in her stead.

Chrom and the Shepherds rode out to Plegia to a negotiations summit, all armed and ready for it to go south. The royals were not about to give up the sacred Fire Emblem and Robin was her own person. They wished to broker for peace but were fully prepared for another all-out war. Already there were Plegian bandits on the borders again with rumors of undead soldiers created by high-level Grimleal sorcerors – beings like the crow that Henry had shown Owain, but made from humans. The common name for them was "Risen."

Owain's parents both left for this summit, leaving him and his brothers and sisters at the orphanage under the care of the assistants. They both returned, heads hanging. His mother's face was gaunt and her eyes red from crying. Owain would never forget the chilling words his father gave him when he asked what was the matter;

"Owain, we… have some bad news about your Uncle Chrom…" 

* * *

There was no time for proper mourning or a ceremony of succession. The royal funeral was a hasty affair, occurring within a few days of the Shepherds' return. The Ylissean army was called to alert along the borders and around Ylisstol. Aunt Robin was missing.

Owain decided that Uncle Chrom did not look like Uncle Chrom in his casket. He was too still, too pale, yet the sight confirmed for him that the man would not be able to give him sword-training anymore. Morgan cried and clung to Sir Frederick. He wouldn't stop asking when his mother would come home. Lucina was nearly as cold and still as her father. She stared ahead when seated for the service, conducted by Libra. Owain found his father's words eloquent, but could not fully appreciate them, not when he was giving worried glances at his cousin. When the remains of the royal family were called up to speak to the people – that is, Lissa, Lucina, Owain, Morgan and Libra, himself, since he was family-by-marriage, Lucina held up Falchion (which had been given to her by Frederick) and recited a speech about hope that someone had given to her to read off. She spoke in a monotone.

"I hear you haven't been eating, Luci," Owain said cautiously, approaching her after the service.

She looked down.

"You have to eat, please?" he insisted. His hands went to a small carry-all bag and he withdrew from it a wrapped sweet bun. "Mama made this. Just try it, okay?"

He watched as she gently took it for a nibble. She ate it slowly.

"Do… does Aunt Lissa have any more?" she asked cautiously.

"Of course she does." 

* * *

Owain's parents went off to war after that - various battles to keep the growing numbers of Risen that were coming across the Ylissean border at bay. There were dark clouds on the western horizon during the daytime. Father said that the evil dragon, Grima, had been awakened and that it was raising up the undead to destroy the world, but was being held back by Naga. It seemed like the clouds grew every day.

Libra and Lissa alternated in their time on the front. Most of the time, it was Owain's father who left and his mother who stayed. Healers were sorely needed, so one or the other of them had to go to every major battle. Lissa assured everyone at the orphanage that the Shepherds would protect them and that Grima would be vanquished. What they needed for victory was for the sacred stones that went into the Fire Emblem to be reclaimed and for a member of the Exalted line to awaken Falchion through a trial of Naga. Lucina was the strongest candidate for this, but she was too young – it was feared that the Awakening would kill her, so all of Ylisse had to bide their time. The remaining Shepherds were hopeful. That didn't stop Lissa from gazing out at the horizon every day that her husband and friends were off fighting, hoping for the best and praying against bad news.

This continued for some time. Father would come home with one wound or another that needed special care and rest while Uncle Frederick took Mother away. She'd be returned to the orphanage, usually unharmed and a mended (sometimes not fully mended) Father would go off. Some days of exchange brought good news of holding the enemy back, other days brought news of some village completely lost or a fallen family friend.

Uncle Gaius fell. Uncle Henry went out in a massive magical explosion of his own devising that took out an entire army of Risen – or so the story went. Aunt Miriel went missing completely.

Owain's younger friend, Brady, came to stay at the orphanage while Aunt Maribelle fought. His other friends stayed with various relatives of theirs. Yarne, Kotton, Angori and Kashmir were supposedly secured in some burrow out in the wilds somewhere while their mother fought on the front lines. Others stayed at the palace. The all-important Exalted cousins Lucina and Morgan were under the care of palace staff and Frederick at Ylisstol.

It was one of these tense times when Owain was waiting for his father to come home that the world turned upside down again.

"Is your Ma burnin' dinner?" young Brady asked, sniffing as looked up from the board game that he and Owain were playing in the common room.

"My mother is a champion of the stove!" Owain said, taking offense.

"Do you hear something outside?" Mila – one of the older orphans said.

"I think its horses," said Syl. "Don't worry, Clara," the boy said to the little girl who was sitting beside him on the couch, clutching her stuffed pegasus toy. "Horsies."

"Maybe Father Libra's home?" Shannon wondered aloud. He and Owain both went to the window. They immediately recoiled when a pale fist crashed through it, followed by a snarling face.

Lissa ran in, clutching Baby Carrie in her arms, swaddled and wailing. "Everyone! Follow me to the cellar, NOW!" she screamed.

"Risen?" Syl yelped in panic, trying desperately to get up on his wooden leg. He'd lost his real one when his village near the Plegian border had been attacked by Grimleal during a random raid for sacrificial victims some time ago, leaving him the last survivor.

Smoke billowed into the room. Lissa's face was aghast.

"They set the house on fire! To the cellar! Move, move move!"

"Why don't we fight them?" Owain asked. "I'll get my sword! Shannon can get his, too!"

The other kids piled into the common room from other rooms of the house. The two adult assistants clattered down the stairs, herding the children the way Lissa was pointing.

"No, you will not!" Owain's mother said emphatically. "Now, everyone stay calm. We are going to file into the kitchen and down into the root cellar. We'll be okay."

She rocked the baby in her arms gently and held her close.

There was an explosion in the back rooms. Suddenly all of the walls were engulfed in flames. All of the children screamed at once. Brother Foxe and Sister Zera shielded everyone.

"What was that?" Syl panicked.

"Father Libra's art room," Lissa answered. "The fire hit his oil pants and rags. Damn!"

While Owain was used to Aunt Sully trying to stifle herself around him and his siblings from saying words that his parents did not approve of (which, of course some of the children would repeat at the earliest opportunity – at least until his mother made him literally wash his mouth out with soap one day), he was unused to his mother using the same words.

He looked left and right. He spared a glance at Brady and at Shannon. Shannon gave him a devious Plegian wink. Owain nodded. The two boys ducked between Foxe and Zera and took off in a dead run toward their shared quarters, ignoring the adults shouting after them.

"Owain!" Lissa cried, but Owain determinedly ignored his mother. He had to get his sword. He was going to fight! Shannon, too. He almost tripped over himself as he barreled down a hallway and into his bedroom. He opened the chest at the foot of his bed. It wasn't the legendary Mysseltain nor was it Falchion, just a simple iron sword, but he had named it and made it his partner.

"Quinarin" stared back at him in her leather scabbard, ready to help him become a hero forged in a house-fire. The name meant "Vanquisher" in a story he'd read about a world in which the dragons had a peculiar language and fought by shouting at one another – a bit different than battles among Manakete, but not by much. It was merely a world that added words to breath, like spell casting. Owain wondered if he was meant to go to that world one day – as he sometimes suspected that all worlds were real and just running parallel to one another.

He spied something else in his chest, a rolled up thick sheet of paper tied with a ribbon. His personal watercolor painting – the one his father had made for him of him being a hero. He put it in his rucksack just as he heard Shannon shouting. He couldn't see for the smoke and choked on it. There were bright flames licking along the wall at the head of his bed.

"I've got my sword!" Shannon yelled, coughing. "There's no time! We need to get out of here!"

They both heard moaning downstairs – it was a distinctly human moaning, but there was something animal about it. It wasn't the sound of their siblings or caretakers.

"This way, boys!" came the voice of Brother Foxe from the hallway. "If you two young fools are done with whatever idiot thing you're doing, you need to come this way!"

Owain felt the man press a wet cloth to his mouth and nose as he ushered him out. He lost sight of Shannon.

"I'll protect us, Brother Foxe!" he assured. "I got Quinarin!"

The man ignored him and pushed him along. They were halfway through the hall back out into the common room when Foxe suddenly stiffened and his eyes lost focus, rolling upward.

"Brother Foxe?"

The priest fell right on top of Owain. The boy shimmied out of the way and was met with the sight of a hand axe in the caretaker's back and the snarling visage of a big man in barbarian-fighter armor with rotting skin. The Risen spat black mucus at him as it yanked its weapon out of Foxe. It lunged toward Owain.

Owain, for his part, shivered, but quickly unsheathed Quinarin, muscle-memory from his training taking over. He was inexperienced in actual battle, but had been trained by the best. Being scared out of his mind didn't stop him from giving his blade a flourish, bypassing the attempted block by his enemy and stabbing the monster through the chest. It dropped its axe, roared and fell to the floor, writhing as the flesh burned from its skeleton into so many purple ashes, followed by the black burn of its bones.

Owain panted, taking in a lungful of smoke and then he coughed.

"Owain!"

His mother's voice. He turned around and bolted in its general direction. When he found her, he found that she was no longer holding Baby Carrie but was brandishing a silver battleaxe.

"Behind me!" she ordered.

More Risen appeared from the hallway. Flames turned the walls and supports of the house-interior into a crackling, lava-like glow. The last image Owain saw that night was his mother, silhouetted in the firelight holding up her weapon as the ceiling groaned and caved in on top of him. 

* * *

"Oh, I see you're awake now. Hi, there."

Owain's vision was blurry. He registered that he was horizontal and that his throat was raw. His chest felt lie there was a great weight upon it. He reached out and found his small fingers brushing skin. Delicate fingers overlapped his. He felt a thin band of metal and the stud of a gem – his mother's wedding ring.

The boy blinked, clearing his vision. "Mother…" he said slowly and immediately regretted it as a needle-stab of throat-pain hit him.

"I'm here."

Her voice was quiet and hoarse. When he turned to see her face he encountered singed hair and a bandage on her cheek with little spats of rusty blood soaked through. Above it, arching around the left side of her face were blisters. The rest of her face was relatively unharmed, but with an unnatural flush as if she'd been out in the sun too long. Owain could hear Brady weeping and wind flapping at fabric.

He looked at the ceiling to find the wood of a tent pole and thick white fabric.

"Mama…"

"You're safe, Owain, you're safe!"

"Where are we?"

"Oh, Owain… I don't know what to say! You've been unconscious for two days! We pulled you out of the rubble… I thought I was going to lose you!"

"You…you can't lose me…" the child said, pulling himself up on his pillow and wincing at the effort. He felt bruises that went deep into the muscles of his limbs. He was also feeling the strange, dizzying after effects of healing-stave magic. "I am a destined-hero. You know that, Mother."

Lissa smiled, her eyes glistening. They were red, too, shot through with prominent blood vessels, indicating insomnia and grief.

Owain looked around the room. There were army cots and a few trunks set up in it. Brady was sitting on one of them. Mila was sitting on one of the trunks, tiny Clara huddled close to her knees, hiding her mouth behind a wing of her toy pegasus.

"Hey, glad to see Heracles got out okay from…whatever that was," Owain said, shooting a look to Clara's stuffed animal. "I said he'd always protect you."

Clara nodded slowly, burying her mouth back into the plush wings.

"That was a Risen-attack," Lissa choked out tearfully. She softly gripped Owain's shoulder. "The house burned down to nothing. Some of us got to the cellar, but…"

She looked away, to the ground.

"The baby died of smoke-inhalation," Mila explained, her voice cold and bitter. "One of the dastards stabbed Syl…he couldn't move fast enough on that bum leg of his. I saw it happen. Zera blocked a thunder spell aimed at me. Everyone else… just lost in the fire. The only people left are you, your Ma, Brady, Clara, Shannon and me. Shannon's outside twirling a sword around. Your Pa came back with the Shepherds last night. Too late."

Owain's jaw dropped and a cold feeling flowed into his veins. "No," he said, shaking his head. "It can't be! It just can't be!"

He swing his legs over the edge of his cot, heedless of his bandaged burns, his barefoot condition and of the fact that he was in loose-fitting pajamas which let him feel the nip in the open air once he'd gotten past his objecting mother and out into the wide world.

He was met with the sight of smoking cinders, blacked bits of house-framing and, by the back side of the house, a figure kneeling upon the ground before several small stone cairns and two large ones.

He approached cautiously, like a cat unsure of a stranger. The man's features were unmistakable. He was putting his hands up in ritual sigils, drawing upon the air. Owain recognized them as prayers of holy-protection.

"Father!"

Libra rose from his position. Owain bolted into his arms.

His father wrapped his arms around his back and gripped into his hair. It was not entirely comfortable. "Owain!" he cried in relief, kneeling down again as he got a tighter, warmer hold on his boy.

Owain simply set himself to bawling into his father's chest.


	4. Palimpsest

**GHOST STORIES**

 **Chapter 4: Palimpsest**

"See? It's not so bad, is it?"

Libra and Lissa sat at a small table across from one another in their private tent. Lissa had her hand upon Libra's left cheek and he leaned into her touch. She brushed a thumb gently over the edge of his cheekbone as if wiping away a tear, though his eyes were dry.

"No, not at all," he said with a gentle smile. "In fact, I dare say that I am beginning to crave it – your touch, that is. I've been avoiding human contact for so long I didn't realize how starved I became for it."

"Good, good. The easier you get with this, the easier it will be to treat you when you get your boneheaded self hurt. You can only treat your own injuries so much, you know."

"You know I try to do that as little as possible, by Naga's grace."

Lissa gently traced her hand downward, over his neck. Libra flinched, her fingers brushing too close to a specific scar.

"Not yet, love," he said with a wince. "Not yet."

"Oh, alright," She withdrew her hand and placed it atop his. She smiled. "You'll get better. Our son from the future says so."

Just then, the aforementioned son burst in through the tent flap. Libra immediately startled and Lissa in kind.

"Father! I finally found the perfect name for the weapon we forged together at the last blacksmith's shop!" Owain proudly held a silver-plated battleaxe in both his hands, keeping the weight in balance. "It spoke to me from out of the fell darkness – a soul shining in the night, proclaiming itself to me!"

Libra and Lissa both gave him disapproving looks.

"I'm not calling it 'Head-Smoosher + 1." Libra answered him.

"That's the beauty of it!" Owain announced, "You don't have to! Your new partner's name is Quinarin II! It means 'Vanquisher,' but he is the second in a line. Please accept him, oh Father!"

Libra stood and hesitantly held out his hands to take the axe. "Very… nice… Owain."

"Don't you think you're being a bit overdramatic?" Lissa asked the young man. "I mean, you go on and on like this all the time, sometimes in front of the whole camp! Is it too much to ask for you to tone it down a bit?"

"Whatever do you mean, dear, sainted Mother?" Owain responded, taken aback. "I have been wracking my overheated brains trying to aid you in bestowing a name upon your favorite staff! I wish merely to bequeath a proper soul upon your weapon to protect you-"

"Stop right there. A weapon doesn't need a name or a soul. Please, Owain, you startled us."

"Many apologies," the young swordsman said with a deep bow. "I shall take my leave now."

"Oh, don't be like that!" Lissa replied. "We'll meet you at dinner, okay?"

Owain was already out of the tent. He wandered around the edges of the camp until he found Lucina sitting on a log looking out over a field. Owain knew that she appreciated the grasses and the little wildflowers that were everywhere. He did, too. They hadn't seen anything but blighted landscapes for a long time.

He refrained from letting his mother know of his habit of catching grasshoppers and making snacks of them – a holdover from the dark days.

"Ho, there!"

"Go ahead and sit down," Lucina beckoned. "I was just… thinking."

Owain sighed as he took a seat beside her, making sure there weren't any ants on the log – a problem he had encountered in their last camp.

"I thought you were spending time with your parents," Lucina mused.

"Yeah, about that…" Owain began, "I think I'm not exactly a fit for them in this timeframe. Mother seems to fear my boiling blood and Father… I haven't got a handle yet on how _shy_ he used to be. I just offended them… I think I stumbled in on a private moment."

"I'm sure you don't offend them, Owain," Lucina assured him, turning to him with a gentle smile. "It's just… this is a different time. They're younger now than when we knew them. A lot of things happened in our time that haven't happened yet."

She set a steel-gaze toward the field. Owain noticed the subtle clench of her fingers digging into the bark of the log. "And most of those things won't happen if I can possibly change fate."

"It's just strange… seeing them again, you know."

Lucina murmured and nodded. Other people might have noticed the change in Owain's demeanor; that he was speaking perfectly seriously and not in his nearly-perpetual "adventure mode," but she didn't seem to notice. After all, they had been very close as cousins all of their lives and his theatrics had become normal to her. Every one of her companions had their particular ways of coping with the traumas they'd lived through. Bombast was his, focus upon goals was hers.

"It is strange," Lucina responded. "I buried Father long ago and Mother… I've been searching for her for so long and here they are."

"It's like seeing ghosts. I am haunted! Haunted, Lucina, not by dark demonic spirits to be bent to my service by the correct incantation but by bright specters of a future-past that never should have been! They live! Again!"

The theater was back and Lucina must have noticed it for the way she smirked at him. It was, however, an expression touched with sadness.

"There are changes… but I don't know if the changes are enough, Owain. The River of Fate seems to be trying to run back to its original course no matter what we do. Aunt Emmeryn still…died. It happened in a different way, but it still happened."

"It must have been so hard for you, being there," Owain said, looking down. "I only heard about it. It was the stuff of legends… her…choice."

"I never knew she was so brave," Lucina sighed. "Too bad that her devotion to peace only shortened one war… it failed to stop the current one – or what's coming. I think the worst part of it was watching over Father and your mother. They took it hard. Frederick, too. My Mother was beside herself. It was the first time she'd lost and lost big. I think she still blames herself. I know Father still blames himself."

"I guess I should count myself lucky that my father managed to join the Shepherds and meet Mother in this timeline, anyway. His circumstances were different – fighting across the desert instead of into Ylisstol. It all turned out the same, though… with him as the lone survivor. It would have been nice if that had been changed…he could have kept his friends… maybe they would have joined the Shepherds, too and I could have met them. Mistress Fate is cruel."

"Aunt Tharja's and Henry's joining – they came in differently, too, but they're still here. This world is already different for our being here, but the general direction is the same. Have you spoken much with my mother yet?"

"A little, but not much. She's very busy. I don't want to bother her planning. She's definitely my aunt by the way she carries her noble self. I have already enlisted her aid in bestowing an appellation upon one of my partner-blades."

"A backup for Missletain?"

"Rightly, my lady. She assessed my level of magical prowess and suggested I try a blade in the shape of a bolt of divine retribution from the heavens. She even suggested that I might take more training under my parents to become an official healer."

"Are you interested in that?"

"I am afraid that my blood boils to overflowing! With the hunger of my sword-hand and the hunger of Owain Dark's rage, I fear that I am unfit to be a priest. I am not quite as controlled as my stoic father."

Lucina gave him a small, quiet laugh. "So, my mother hasn't told you of her memory problems yet?"

"Memory problems?"

"In this timeline, she has amnesia. She doesn't remember a thing from before the day she met my father. She doesn't remember her mother, the namesake for my middle name. My infant-self back at the castle has the middle name of 'Emmeryn."

"So, it runs in the family in this timeline, then?"

Lucina gave him a grim look. "It would seem so."

It was Owain's turn to sigh. "He didn't remember anything… nothing from the Justice Cabal. He's still smart as a whip but he doesn't remember all the times he saved our tails. He still can't remember you? Not a thing?"

"Nothing, Owain, none of it. He seems to remember a little bit about Falchion, how I wouldn't let him touch it, but he has no clear memory of me or Father – only of Mother."

"It's painful. I'm so sorry, Lucina. We'll help him…somehow."

"On one hand, I wonder if it might be a blessing. He's… happier… than most of us seem to be. He isn't indebted to the painful memories that we share."

"He was always a pretty chipper kid," Owain answered. "But, I know what you mean. At least we found him. Give it time. He'll have to remember his big sister. You were so close."

"I'm…I'm happy we found him at all. When he disappeared, I held out hope, but after a while…"

"We had to assume the worst and move on. It was a miracle that we found him again just as we were running for the Gate."

"What if something horrible happened to him, Owain?"

"Well, Mother and Father didn't see any big scars or wounds on him when they gave him an examination," Owain assured her. "They checked his head thoroughly. And didn't Brady get a good look at him before we jumped time?"

"I didn't… I didn't tell Father or Mother about Morgan at all," Lucina confessed. "When we were separated again after going through the Gate…"

"For the same reason that Yarne doesn't tell Aunt Panne and Uncle Gaius about his brothers and sisters," Owain finished for her.

"I didn't want to give them the burden of grief if he was… if he hadn't shown up. It's bad enough as it is. I don't know what's worse – losing him initially or…being forgotten."

"We're in this together," Owain spoke, surprisingly sagely. "It'll work out. It has to. We're the heirs of heroes and we've defied the temporal plain itself to change things! The chosen heroes yet to be born will know a different world because I, Owain, Hero of the Ages, will carve a new path! With you as my sidekick!"

Lucina gave him a smile. "Thank you, Owain." 

* * *

The Shepherds were on the march the next day and time's river once again was trying to flow into its appointed bed.

Owain was in the rearguard with his father, walking steadily behind one of the medical supply wagons, well behind the others due to an unanticipated stop to repair one of the wheels. They passed under a glade of tall trees as they were arguing about an incident that happened after breakfast that morning in which Owain was failing to stay his "raging blood" and Libra had found it both distressing and embarrassing. He had genuinely thought that something was wrong with his son – at first, and then Lissa had sorted everything out in her usual manner. The priest was still a tad annoyed. Owain searched his face for some way he might make things up to him.

In the future, his parents had encouraged his imagination – this set was unused to it. Owain had to remind himself that they hadn't even created the Destiny that was him just yet and perhaps were a little overwhelmed by his sheer aura.

The young man's ear caught the distinct sound of an arrow whistling on the air.

"OWAIN, LOOK OUT!"

Before he knew it, his father and jumped in front of him. In an instant, the tall man was griping an arrow lodged in his shoulder, blood staining his white robes.

Owain's only thought in that split-second was _Oh, no, not again, not again, please, gods, not again!  
_  
"Archers…in the trees…" Libra struggled. "We're outnumbered…We have to get out of here! Now! GO!"

"R-right."

Owain looped his father's good arm over his shoulders to keep him steady as they fled through the forest. They were panting in exhaustion by the time they'd lost the enemy, not even sure what manner of enemy they were. Neither of them had gotten a good look as to ascertain whether they were Valmese soldiers, Risen or standard bandits. They heard the din of battle in the distance, the shouts of familiar voices, which meant that the rest of the Shepherds had backtracked for them and had encountered their attackers.

Owain settled Libra on the ground against a tree, the latter wincing. He knew enough from being raised by the man and by his mother that the projectile was best left in the wound until help arrived, despite how uncomfortable it was.

"Gods, not again."

"Hmm?" Libra asked, hazy.

"Why? Why did you take that arrow for me?" Owain demanded, his face flushed from running. "You could have died! This is how it happens, you know, this is exactly…Er…"

"This is how what happens?" Libra asked, surprisingly calm given the situation.

Owain was gesticulating and a choking sob escaped his throat. "Oh, Father…"

"Owain? Owain, why are you crying? What's wrong?" Libra asked urgently, suddenly worried that maybe his wound was worse than it felt. He quickly assessed that he did not presently have any of the symptoms of acute shock, but the way Owain was acting was worrisome.

"I," Owain sighed, "No, nothing. Nothing is wrong. It was just more improv… alright? Just forget I said anything. More importantly, we need to get that shoulder looked at. I'll go get Mother."

"A-alright," Libra said tiredly. "I'll be right here."

Owain returned, crashing through the bushes with Lissa in tow.

"Libra!" she yelped. "Libra, answer me!"

Libra opened his eyes. "I'm alright, love."

She dropped to her knees with a tin-box medical kit and passed the Mend stave she was holding into Owain's hands. Owain felt as numb as stone as he watched the proceedings. He managed to hold back the urge to sob so as not to upset the patient or the physician.

Libra sucked wind through his teeth and Lissa gently prodded the area surrounding the wound and cut a hole in his outer robe around where the arrow had struck home. "Alright," she said, matter-of-factly, "We both know that this isn't going to be pretty. I suspect Owain knows it, too. You can look away, kiddo!"

Owain gently shook his head. "No, Mother. I've assisted wounds before. What kind of a hero would I be if I could not look upon a little blood?"

Lissa took a strip of leather out of the medical kit and placed it in Libra's mouth. "Bite down on the count of three," she said.

He nodded quickly and calmly did as told. She grabbed the shaft of the arrow. "One. Two. Three!"

She yanked out the bloody head of the projectile and tossed it over her shoulder. In a flash she grabbed the stave from Owain's hand and set to a quick mend of the wound.

The bit of belt dropped from Libra's lips as he uttered a moan of both pain and relief. He caught his breath.

Owain was giving him the look of a deer caught in a flash of nighttime lightning-magic.

"Owain," he said softly, "I am healed. No need to worry. Owain? Owain…?"

"Y-yeah, Father," he answered hesitantly.

Other Shepherds came upon the scene.

"Oh, my, my," said Virion. "Beauty has cheated the Reaper!"

"Are you alright, Friend?" Chrom asked.

Three months of being his brother-in-law and Chrom still had a habit of calling his relations "Friend."

"Don't you worry, just a bunch of Risen dastards and we kicked their asses!" Sully announced.

Libra smiled as he allowed Chrom to help him to his feet.

"Can we - ?" Owain began, "Can he ride in a wagon for the rest of the march?"

"I don't see why not," Robin said.

"I am fine, really," Libra insisted.

"It's best to take precautions!" Lissa said. "And I'm gonna ride with you to make sure you rest!"

"You just don't want to walk the rest of the way," Chrom teased.

"Are you kidding? My feet are killing me!"

"Alright, alright," Chrom said, a bemused smile crossing his lips. "But we are having bear tonight."

"Hmph!"

"She's just using me as an excuse, Sir," Libra said, "but I welcome it."

"Owain?" Chrom asked.

"Huh?" the young man jumped, unsettled from his thoughts. "Oh… I'll walk with Lucina, alright?"

"Hmm."

Owain walked in silence the rest of the way beside his cousin, watching the wagon his parents rode in. His silence was met with Lucina's own, grim glances exchanged occasionally between them.

The truth was that, in the future, Libra had taken an arrow for Owain and it had lead to his end. However, the deeper truth was that the priest had not lost his life by the arrow directly. Owain could not shake the guilt and the shame, however, the emotions rising up anew. In the pas that was the future, an arrow taken for him had been the beginning of the end. Although circumstances were different now, the young man could not stop himself from being wracked with worry that history was just going to repeat itself.

He kept his gaze ahead at the wagon and prayed silently that his father was going to be alright.


	5. To Script an Ending

**GHOST STORIES**

 **Chapter 5: To Script an Ending**

After Ylisstol was taken, the remains of the Shepherds and their children traveled in a band. What was left of the Ylissean military did what they could to aid survivors. The residents of the city that had escaped the onslaught of Risen formed a nation of nomads. Their numbers grew as they went by the remains of cities and during their attempt to flee to Regna Ferox, which was similarly inundated with the undead.

One might have been tempted to see the band as the very last of Humanity, but there were other bands. Survivor bands roamed the Plegian desert – those citizens that had rebelled against becoming soul-food for Grima. There were rumors of survivors in Valm forming a resistance. Among the Ylisseans, Lucina was held as their sacred princess although attempting to lead was new to her. The remnants of her family did their best to guide her, her aunt and her uncle serving almost as surrogate parents after the loss of her true ones. She was independent enough to not need as close care as her cousin, Owain, but Lissa, Libra and the ever-vigilant Frederick were her guides and light. They were this for Morgan, too, although Morgan looked up to her as his big sister, closer to her than anyone else with them and loyal to the memory he kept of his mother.

The remaining adult Shepherds – any who could be spared for the fight – searched the world for the sacred stones that were meant to complete the Fire Emblem. At this point, it coming into their possession and Lucina awakening the Falchion were the world's only hope.

In the meantime, the survivors of Ylisse camped where they could and fought when they had to, constantly trying to stay two steps ahead of the Risen bands. Unfortunately, there were many losses, bolstering the numbers among the dead and the undead. The living tried their best to keep the dead from joining the ranks of the ravening zombies, but nothing they did was full proof.

After the Risen began running rampant over the lands, cremation of the dead became common, for the only sure way to keep a corpse of someone who'd been bitten and turned from rising was to kill them again and to burn them to ashes to be scattered upon the wind.

The energies of Grima in the land raised the dead from the ground in some areas. Again, the only way to destroy a Risen for sure was to turn them into ashes. Older Risen and Risen that had been cobbled together from variant parts – gestalts of the remains of former people – tended to turn to dust when killed, but it wasn't always so for corpses fresh and whole.

However, cremation fell out of favor as the last survivors scrambled in groups across the land. The remnants of Ylisstol, in particular, had stopped it altogether as their numbers dwindled. Most of the time, the survivor-bands had to flee and leave their fallen in order to preserve their lives, even with the grim knowledge that they might have to face their loved ones later in battle.

Fires attracted Risen to their camps. Even small campfires and cook-fires were carefully regulated. People caught on quickly to what kinds of wood and grasses could be used to create different kinds of smoke – light for daytime and dark for night – to keep from easily being sighted, but even so, precautions were taken to keep them as low and concealed as possible, particularly if it was suspected that Risen were in an area. Cremation took large pyres, the kind of big fires that would attract attention.

When pyres were tried, ambushes happened – the living fled, leaving the dead to either be infected to become something worse than a standard Risen – but something burnt and bloody, more disfigured than the average undead, or, in some cases, a roasted _meal_ for the soulless things.

Instead, priests and clerics – any light-magic workers – had taken it upon themselves to weave spells of protection upon the fallen. Seals would be placed upon bodies that would keep the dark energies from seeping in and successfully raising them. Holy magic could counter the dark energy.

So, Lucina's people tended toward the working of seals and shallow graves and stone-cairns for their dead before moving on. It was all they could do.

Owain watched his parents weave seals upon slain soldiers. They tried to keep him from watching them do this work, but he wouldn't stay in his tent or in the convoy wagons. Brady was training in what was left in the priesthood of Ylisse and was trying to learn the spells, but he had some difficulty due to some misunderstanding. His father had been a sorcerer and, from him, Brady knew a few dark magic spells that would keep the deceased in a still state. These dark curses did not work well with the light-magic and the seals would dissolve or blow up in his face. His mother guided him for as long as she could. She also made pains to teach him refinery and manners, despite their setting. Brady kept training with Owain's mother after his own mother was slain. It was a death that Lissa had taken especially hard.

It seemed like Owain's family would suffer some kind of personal loss at least once a month. One by one, his friends among the Shepherd's children became orphans. Some had been so for a long time and they all had different ways of coping. Inigo constantly practiced a dance that his mother had been teaching him that he never got to finish learning. Cynthia worked on spear-designs to honor her mother. Laurent and Morgan worked together on strategy to keep their minds on the present. Yarne found good places that they agreed upon for camps – places that were well hidden. The poor Taguel was the last of his kind and particularly twitchy, having witnessed the deaths of his siblings first-hand and bereft of his father early on, his mother having died to protect him. Noire had two distinct moods – her regular self and a berserker mode that came out when she panicked. Even as a tiny girl, she'd managed to land arrows right into Risen eyes and throats with astounding accuracy. Owain found himself joining in battles, as well, since he knew the ways of the sword. His cousin, Lucina, was a fine fighter and was proactive in protecting the people even though most of them would have had it the other way around.

Losses among the original Shepherds were taken especially hard. Owain considered himself lucky to keep both of his parents as most of his friends were down to one or none. The hardest losses for his family, however, were those in his immediate family. The orphans of Saint Emmeryn's fell one by one to varying causes. Shannon was killed in battle watching Owain's back as they were sword-partners against an ambush. It was the day that "Quinarin" broke. Owain named other swords before finding his "Missletain" – including one blade he called "Shannon" in honor of his fallen friend that he held for a good long while. When it broke, he buried it and felt like he was burying his friend a second time. Mila died similarly, killed trying to secure some of the camp-children and defending Nah and Clara.

Clara fell ill from one of the many diseases that ran rampant over the lands in the wake of so much rotten flesh on the march. Owain watched her quickly deteriorate from something that masked itself as a common fever, but failed to be staved off with either staffs or medication. His parents tried in vain to save her, but in the end, he watched as his father gently held her in his arms and sang softly to her as she took her last breaths. Father had remained as stoic as he always was, holding back his tears, but Owain knew that as calm as he'd tried to appear for everyone's sake – especially poor Clara's – that he was destroyed.

Owain caught him expressing a rare amount of anger in a field outside their camp a week after they buried her. He was screaming at the sky, demanding answers from the gods. The boy hid himself well as he watched Father curse and tear up the dry grass only to collapse to his knees in sobs. In the end, he asked the benevolent gods of the Ylissean way for forgiveness and told Naga that he understood that she was fighting for mortalkind. Owain tried to understand it.

"Faith is all he has left, honey," Mother said to him when he spoke of what he'd seen to her. "Well, that and us."

Owain's way of coping was to tell stories around the campfires. His mother would gently smile as she spoke of his orphan brothers and sisters as "great martyrs" and wove stories of them as heroes. He made up stories about them being reincarnated into other worlds, sent by the gods to various Outrealms to save them from evil since they'd been so brave in their own world. Some of his friends came to him for weapon-names. Others shied away from him and told him to live in reality.

It was when the Ylisseans were ambushed on a march that things took a turn from bad to worse.

"Don't worry, Father! I'll protect the caravan! The name of Owain Dark shall be known by all evildoers and they shall shudder in abject terror! Hoo-aaah! Grima himself will flee when I meet him and shout out RAIIIDIENT DAAAAAWN!"

He was posing and not watching the road.

"OWAIN, LOOK OUT!"

There was a thunk and a feminine grunt. His father staggered, grabbing an arrow-shaft embedded in his flesh.

Owain panicked, thinking his father had been hit in the chest at first, but it was his shoulder. Everything was chaos after that – with Risen jumping down from blighted black trees and running up over the hills.

"Mother!" Owain screamed. "Father is hurt!"

He watched her riding on the back of Sir Frederick's horse with him as he cut a path with his lance, only for Risen axe-fighters to cut them off.

A few of them wore the dress of war monks.

"I am your Omega!" Libra yelled as he hefted up his axe despite his wound, making it worse in the process. He tried to fight his way to the two of them only to be confronted with Risen myrmidons. It was Owain's turn to push his father out of the way. "Support me!" he yelped. "You're hurt!"

Libra gasped and panted, showing his pain despite trying not to.

"Aiieee!" Lissa screamed.

"Lissa!" Libra shouted.

Ylissean soldiers moved in. Risen horsemen galloped in.

"We have to get to safety, Father!" Owain insisted.

Cordelia came down by them on her pegasus. "Libra, get on!" she insisted. "You're just going to kill yourself if you keep fighting at this point! You're a healer, you should know this! Look at how much you're bleeding out!"

Owain shoved his father toward the white animal.

"Owain, you too."

The boy's jaw hung. "But…But my Mom!"

"We're outnumbered! Frederick has her!"

"Take us over the field…we have to find her…" Libra insisted as he mounted Cordelia's steed with her help.

"I can try."

"Can your horse carry us all?" Owain asked.

"Yes, she can, though your father puts a bit of strain… you're small enough. Come on! We'll get drop off your father at the convoy and we'll do a sweep to see if we can find your mother!"

The last Owain saw of his mother that day was her, indeed, riding below with Frederick and cutting a swath through Risen from the back of his horse with a hand axe as he plowed through them with his lance. They were doing well – however, by the time the Ylisseans regrouped, the two of them and many soldiers that were with them were nowhere to be found.

Libra had passed out on the pegasus-ride by the time they got to the main wagons. When he awoke, Cordelia was at his side inside one of them wiping down his face with a wet cloth and with a half-empty elixir bottle. Owain was bandaging up his shoulder.

"Lissa…" he moaned.

"She's missing," Cordelia said matter-of-factly, "But we'll find her. You know she can hold her own. Have faith."

He smiled before laying back. "I suppose I should," he answered.

"Why did you take that arrow for me, Father?" Owain asked. "You could have died!"

"You're my son and I didn't die," he replied. "Now pray for your mother and pass me that vial. I'll be in shape to fight soon enough." 

* * *

More than a week of searching for the missing party turned up nothing. Desperation to find the elder princess and the royal retainer faded by the day. To their frustration, both Owain and Libra were confined to camp by the orders of the remaining Shepherds and ultimately, by Lucina's order.

Lucina, even at her young age, wisely assessed that Owain would be reckless in seeking out his mother and was likely to be killed doing something misguided. Libra was more badly hurt than he let on. He held and swung his axe weakly and she ordered him to stop training until his shoulder stopped hurting and stopped being stiff. He complained that he could take the pain, but seeing as the arrow had punched through bone, he wasn't going to be an effective soldier again anytime soon. He was allowed, however, to heal others and resumed his medic duties within camp quickly.

Cordelia lead anyone who could ride a pegasus on searches. Sully led the horsemen. Every return brought disappointment and flagging hope. The best they could find was a piece of one of Lissa's staffs. Owain claimed it.

He spent the next day holed up in his family's tent while his father wandered the camp.

"I have to help those I can," he told his boy, "Even in times like this." 

* * *

By the afternoon, the existence of the medicine-chest had been haunting Libra all day. He wandered into the medical tent of the survivors' latest camp, his "home" now, he thought ruefully. He had deemed his shoulder-wound not bad enough to require him to sleep there, but there were no wounded occupying it currently. He'd been spending the better part of most of his days since the last battle treating people there for minor injuries and coughs and releasing them quickly. The rest of his time he spent alone either in the tent he shared with Owain or out on the edge of one of the blighted fields, or sitting in the tumbled wreck of what once had been a stone-brick house. The group did not know when they'd been packing up. They were in the remains of a walled city – some place that Risen had swept through before and were not likely to run through again anytime soon. The broken walls provided battlements, good cover.

He was beginning to accept the growling unlikelihood of finding the lost troops.

 _Lissa…_ his mind echoed.

Libra tried to tell himself that he had at least protected Owain.

 _But for how long?_

An unbidden image came up in his mind of Owain dying in his arms, a larger body than little Clara's had been – and bloodier. He shook it away and winced.

 _Everyone eventually leaves you…_

"Enough," the priest whispered, talking to himself. There were times when he wondered if his parents had been correct and he had, indeed, been saddled with a demon inside him. In any case, it was going to be silenced, at least for a while. His shoulder did bother him and he'd been dosing himself with painkillers, very careful upon the dosage, even taking less than he could have simply because they needed to save the precious commodity for anyone who came back to camp with serious wounds. If he'd had the benefit of a stave-healing, it wouldn't be as stiff and sore. He probably would have been completely mended by now, in that case, but, at present, he was the only magic-ability healer in the camp and they were out of staffs that were capable of healing the wielder.

He grit his teeth in bitterness. _Lissa…_

The image of her bones stripped by hungry Risen presented itself in his mind. The image of her as a Risen also came to his imagination.

" _Nothing has been found yet,"_ he tried to tell himself. _"There is a chance that she's still out there… and Sir Frederick…and the rest…"  
_  
 _They are gone… gone forever, like your children,_ the gruesome, unbidden part of his mind shot back.

Libra opened the medicine chest and found what he was looking for – a small blue vial. He could take a drop or two on his lips to quiet the throb in his shoulder or… he could take a little bit more and it would put him to sleep for a few hours. He'd been avoiding drugging himself to sleep even on nights when the insomnia and nightmares kept him up in case the camp was ambushed. He'd been keeping his armor on almost perpetually as it was. Most of the soldiers were, while the civilians cobbled together what they could of armor scavenged from the landscape and cooking pot-helms.

It was midday, as it was, not a time to sleep, but he was tired.

 _So tired…_

He sighed as he sat down on one of the cots and rolled the vial around in the palm of his hand. If he downed the entire thing, he figured on one of two things happening; He would either go unconscious for a good, long time – experiencing a small coma or… the dose would, quite efficiently, kill him. It wouldn't be easy, either. He'd seen the effects of overdose of this particular extract. The subject would start to fall asleep only to awaken with a start, struggling for breath. This drug was something found to calm a patient and lull them to sleep, along with a slowdown of their breathing – a good anesthetic for surgery, but it carried a risk of respiratory shutdown. Anyone given it for surgery or as a painkiller in any high dosage needed to be carefully monitored and either aided with a stave or given an antidote if they showed any signs of poisoning.

Libra measured the size of it against the size of his body. He wanted to sleep very badly – to just forget about their constantly moving camp, Risen, the burials of children, the screams of comrades, Owain's lost future, the remnant of Humanity on his little niece's shoulders and how the gods had taken Lissa, but had seen fit to leave him behind. He could sleep – just sleep for a while.

 _Or forever…_

He bit his lip. The voice in his head was a nag, but it spoke the truth.

"It's no way to meet Naga," he whispered to himself. "I should die fighting."

 _You've fought enough. You've fought and you couldn't save them. Everyone the gods placed in your care – you failed them. Think of all the of the soldiers you could not save, Miracle Man! Think of all of the people you've killed! You've failed Lissa, as well. You will fail Owain._

Libra grunted.

 _Do you really want to watch him die? Do you want to cause his death?_

"Shut up."

 _He is strong. He'll be stronger without you weighing him down._

He looked at the vial again.

 _The gods have no more for you in this life. They've abandoned you – they've abandoned the world. Look around yourself, Libra. Grima has won. Everything is just a slow ache before the End. Don't watch it happen. End your pain. Sleep._

Libra's hands shook.

 _Failure! You are a failure!_

Alright. With his body-size, even with the lack of adequate food of late to absorb any intake, he could, quite possibly, just sleep for a while if he downed the entire vial. And, if it did kill him, so be it. He didn't care anymore. His brain was right – this world was in its death-throes. He'd failed everyone he'd ever loved – foolish they were to love him back.

And Lissa, his light, was gone.

"I'm sorry," he said, "Please…forgive me." Whether his words were to Naga or to Lissa he didn't know. If someone was listening, it was all he could do.

He tipped the elixir-vial to his lips and drank it down in full. He lay down upon the cot to wait for whatever effect it was going to take. 

* * *

He jerked awake – not even out of a dream, but out of a pure darkness, to find himself on the floor, the cot above him in a milky haze. Sunlight streamed into the tent from its doorway, catching the light of the empty cobalt-glass medicine-vial on the floor and the drops of clear liquid in pale smears beside it.

Libra's chest was on fire and his throat felt shut. His skin was tingling and cold. He tried to gasp and nothing came of it.

 _No, no, no….  
_  
He'd known what he was getting into, he'd supposed, but not entirely. He'd seen the effects of an overdose in the past, and so had known what to expect, but he hadn't known from a personal standpoint – experience. Seeing and experience were two entirely different matters.

 _Why didn't I think it would hurt this much?_

… I deserve it.

Libra heard the patter of footsteps and then a scream. He looked and his bleary vision found deep blue – blue clothing and a mop of blue hair.

 _No, dear Naga, not like this!_

"Uncle Libra?" Lucina questioned.

She had come into the medical tent to see if she could find a common stomachache-remedy for her little brother. Morgan hadn't taken the dog meat stew they'd had last night well.

The war monk looked at her with shame in his eyes as she grabbed one of his staves off the rack by the medicine chest. "Uncle Libra, hold on!"

Another short figure followed her in.

 _No, no, no….oh, gods, no…_

"Father!"

Owain met Libra's gaze – the latter's shamed look turned into a look of pure despair.

"Father, please! Don't leave me!" The boy cried as he took the staff from Lucina's hands and Lucina grabbed a spare.

The princess was not versed at all in magic-healing, but it did not mean that she wasn't going to try. Owain knew a little bit of healing, but mostly in the conventional ways, the basics of dressing wounds and some medicines. He'd yet to train in healing magic, but he mimicked what he'd seen his father and mother do countless times.

"It's not working!" he yelped through his tears. His father's lips were blue and his eyes were rolling.

Libra shot his gaze toward the empty elixir-bottle on the floor. Lucina looked to it and looked back before trying staff-work again. Libra choked, trying to draw in breath. He looked to Owain, who was covered in white light in his vision and reached out to him, managing to weakly grab the boy's shoulder.

"Be…be strong, Owain," he whispered.

Owain remained on his knees and still as his father's grip suddenly slackened and his hand fell. The man let out a rattling breath as his eyes slipped closed. He shuddered before stilling completely.

"He's not breathing! He's not breathing!" Lucina repeated.

"Pinch his nose closed and breathe into his mouth!" Owain instructed. He put his hands together and started pressing on his father's chest.

"What are you doing?" Lucina demanded.

"I've seen Mom bring someone back this way! Just do what I say!"

After about half an hour, the exhausted teen and pre-teen stopped. The staves they'd grabbed lay on the floor behind them and Owain laid his head across his father's chest. He sobbed as Lucina numbly rubbed his back.

"What happened?" He asked helplessly. "He was fine… he said he was just fine…He…" the boy hiccupped.

Lucina looked to the vial on the floor and back to Libra's body. Owain caught her gaze and saw it. He crawled over to it and picked it up.

"It's a painkiller," he said…"For wounds. His shoulder must have been bothering him." Owain held the bottle in his hand, noting its emptiness and palming it helplessly.

"Y-yeah," Lucina said slowly.

"Did Dad make a mistake?"

"Yes, Owain," Lucina replied, wiping her eyes. "He made a mistake."

He crawled back over to her on his knees. They held each other and wept until a soldier heard them, beheld the scene and ushered them out of the tent.


	6. Spilled Ink

**GHOST STORIES**

 **Chapter 6: Spilled Ink**

"It wasn't much of a wound, thank the gods."

Lucina watched as her cousin spoke with her uncle in the middle of camp. She smiled. Libra seemed to be well on the mend and in good spirits while Owain was his usual dramatic self, informing his father exactly why he considered himself an heir of heroes. Owain really could be mushy in his own way.

The camp was at rest. Lucina's mother was busy planning the next march and studying what maps the Shepherds could scrounge up of one of Walhart's key strongholds. Say'ri was with her and they'd shooed Morgan out of the War Tent, somehow. The boy was at the camp's edges in a field trying to introduce an uneasy Noire to various insect species. It was interesting, Lucina thought, with how he had reacted to a cockroach in their tent the other night that he'd be right back to hunting bugs. Although he had no memory of it, Morgan was the same as he ever was. To him, beetles and butterflies were elegant creatures. Roaches, on the other hand, were regarded as the spawn of Grima.

There wasn't much to do around the camp at the moment. Lucina was refused by Frederick when she'd wanted to help him take inventory on their weapons. Mother, Sar'yi and Father were all busy discussing strategy. Gregor and Gaius were doing meal-planning for dinner while Panne and Yarne did some gathering for things the former pair hoped were growing in the area and requested keen rabbit-noses to sniff out. Virion was with Donnel out hunting. Laurent was spending time with his mother, their noses in books on alchemical theory. Gerome and Cherche were scouting on the old and young versions of Minerva, respectively. Severa was sulking about something, as usual. Lucina had no idea where Inigo had gotten off to – if he was off trying to flirt in the village over the hills or if he was somewhere in the woods practicing dance moves away from prying eyes. Kjelle was training. Lucina thought she'd heard some roaring and the breaking of tree branches from the section of the forest that Nah had gotten off to. Brady was trying to stave off a cold with some hot tea and soup. Cynthia was practicing heroic shouts at the edges of the field and Lucina wanted no part of it. Owain usually would be a part of it, but he was too busy looking after his father.

The princess grabbed some bread, a hunk of cheese and a took a slice off of a salty ham in one of the food-supply wagons and took it back to the tent she shared with Morgan for a late afternoon snack. She sat alone and chewed the impromptu sandwich delicately, savoring every tiny bite. She couldn't eat too fast – she found out that trying could make her sick. Even after all of this time in the Past, she was still getting used to relatively rich food. Army-rations were not considered fine cuisine, even when supplemented with the fresh stuff the Shepherds brought in from gathering expeditions or bought in towns, but simple fare like this was like having a royal feast every day compared to the types of food that she and her friends had to struggle to scrounge up in the country they'd come from, not to mention being able to eat every day.

"Knock, knock! Do you have need of a hero?" Owain pried open the entry-flap on the tent and peeked inside.

"Come in, Owain. Is something the matter?"

Owain sat down in a small chair at the small table across from his cousin.

"No, no… Father is doing great. He's still a little sore, but he's going to be just fine. He is as a mighty frost-giant, shrugging off that pitiful arrow like it was a pinprick! Nay, a mere mosquito, swatted away with ease! Oh! My foolish heart to think that such a champion favored by the gods should fall to such a trifling thing! Naga smiles upon him."

"That's good," Lucina responded. She offered him a bite of her sandwich, but he held his hand up in refusal.

"Having Mother here is all the difference – that radiant sun-haired goddess of compassion! I just… couldn't help but worry… seeing that again. He's the same in this timeline as he was in ours – a hero willing to sacrifice himself for me when I never asked for it."

"What did you tell him?"

"Just that – I explained that was the reason the mighty Owain Dark was so afright! His blood was spilt for me and so set mine a' raging! He took it that he had died with no regrets since he had done so for my sake."

"Good. Don't tell him anything more."

"Why would I? He is not suffering great pain from the wound… He seemed to be getting irritated when I asked him about the dosages of elixirs he was taking. Oh, the faces of Father when he is vexed! Like a dragon awoken from a nap upon his hoard of gold…calm, yet…stormy. I have missed them! He is not taking any more medicine and he told me that the wound would heal on its own now. There is no more need to warn him."

Lucina sighed. "He's not… sad or anything?"

"Sad? Why would he be sad?"

"Nmm…nevermind."

"My dearest Father is as stoic as a stone, as usual. He's just… calm. A sea of glass. The only thing that's different from his way is that he's refraining from training, but that's only because dear Mother – whose shielding fury is like that of a nesting wyvern and the strength thereof lie the Fire Emblem, itself - has persuaded him not to press himself. No demon that I could detect vexes him at present."

"Well," Lucina said, "You know how he died in our world."

"Yeah, he made a mistake with his medication and overdosed. He's not in danger of that now since he's no longer on a regimen."

"Owain…" Lucina looked at him intently. "You _know_ what really happened. You have to have put it together by now."

"What do you mean, Lucina? You were there. He made a mistake."

"Yes, he did make a mistake, Owain, but I thought you'd understand the nature of the mistake by now."

"It's why I try to walk off my wounds and take as little vulnerary as possible. I know of the treachery of concoctions that they can sometimes even fool the most talented of divine-healers like my poor fallen Father…Not that Owain Dark needs much aid!"

His face fell, giving his cousin an increasingly insecure look in counter to the dead seriousness of her branded gaze. "Lucina?"

"Owain," Lucina said as gently as she could possibly muster. "Your father… he took too much medicine on purpose. He was hurting, but it was his heart that was hurting most of all. He was tired and he left us."

Owain's face blanched. "No, no, no, no! What are you saying?" he yelped. He shook his head. "He couldn't have done that! He wouldn't! That's against the will of Naga! His parents left him, he wouldn't leave me! Heroes don't do that!"

"I'm afraid that's just what happened, Owain," Lucina said. "Like you said, I was there. The way he looked at me with so much shame in his eyes when I came into the medical tent… and the despair in them when you followed… Owain…"

Lucina began crying. "I told you that he just made a mistake. Owain, you were eleven years old! What was I going to say to you?"

"He had a bad wound!" Owain shot back. It was worse than the one he got the other day! His shoulder was messed up really bad and Mother was missing at the time and couldn't help him fix it! Of course he was in pain! He just took too much medicine!"

There was no more floursh in Owain's words. He was speaking in fear that had cut straight to the heart. It did not go unnoticed by Lucina, nor even by himself. 

* * *

Lissa happened to be outside of Lucina's tent at the time, fetching an apple to snack on from a barrel that happened to be outside of the tent. She stopped her rummaging as soon as she'd heard Lucina and Owain start speaking of the death of the version of her husband that had existed in their world. She had then dropped her apple back into the barrel and ducked down behind it to listen. The sprightly cleric was no stranger to spying. She used sneak close to enemy-lines before her brother convinced her to stop and had assigned her Lon'qu as a personal bodyguard for a while – and that man, despite his reluctance to get close to her as a female – was very effective at catching her. He wasn't around right now - but training – and this wasn't a situation in which she was putting herself in danger. Even so, she twitched and kept looking over her shoulder.

She bit her lip with every word and then her nails. Owain and Lucina were out and out arguing at this point, Owain's voice reaching a higher pitch as the conversation grew heated, his usual theatric tone gone – a sure sign of serious fears. They were both going on enough that she expected that they might burst out of the tent at any time to take their fight to the sparring-field. She had not been there in the future-past – that much was true – she had not see what the two had seen and were arguing about first-hand, but she _knew_. She knew her husband's nature too well to not see it.

Libra had always struck her as ethereal – not only in physical beauty and in having all of the grace and charm that she wished she'd had – but in his general manner. He had a wistfulness about him, like he'd been at least halfway done with the physical world from the beginning and was constantly looking into another. He took everything calmly, but Lissa knew him to be despair-prone. Her secret opinion was that, among the Shepherds, should anything dire happen, should they truly face the End of the World with no fight left and no way out, that the two people among them that would be the most likely to take their own lives would be Henry… and Libra.

She figured that Henry might just do it for farts and giggles – that upon getting bored with life that he'd use some kind of dark magic spell to rip his own heart out to hold it in his hand and watch it beat bloody with his last breaths because he was just a strange one. Libra, on the other hand, displayed many of the typical symptoms of chronic depression. He knew this, himself. Prayer helped. The companionship of the Shepherds was helping, too.

Maybe…it was and would not be enough… in the end…

Lissa clenched her fists and marched to their shared tent. Libra was on his cot, sitting up with pillows propping his back, a blanket over his legs, contentedly reading a copy of "Wyvern Wars: Terror at High Noon" in the waning available afternoon light. He looked up at the sound of her approach and was immediately puzzled at the expression she was giving him. He had not seen Lissa make a face quite like that outside of battle.

"Lissa, what is wrong?" he implored.

 _"You!"_

"Beg Pardon?"

 _"You!"_

She stormed up to him and attempted to deck him, but Libra jumped up from his bed and dodged.

"What has gotten into you, love?" Libra asked frantically. "Calm your fury and explain it to me!"

"My fury will not be calmed!" Lissa shot back. "How _could_ you? How could you do that? To me, to Owain, to the Shepherds?"

"Whatever did I do?" Libra asked as one of Lissa's small fists connected with his stomach. He barely felt it even in a plain shirt without armor on due to his axe-wielder's musculature and because Lissa was reluctant to truly hurt him, despite her anger. "Pray tell me what manner of sin I have committed?"

Lissa tried in vain to sniff back snot and tears. "In… in the future… how you died! _I heard it all!_ "

"Lissa…" he spoke hesitantly, "According to the children, we all died in the future – and it wasn't something to be helped. That is why they are here, to avert the calamity."

"No, you don't understand!" Lissa wailed.

"Owain told me that I took an arrow to save his life. This does not sound like the manner of death that I would regret – although I regret having left you by it in his world."

Lissa gave him a hard glare, fists clenched at her sides. "Will you listen to me for just a freakin' moment?" she demanded. "I was just outside of Lucina's tent! I heard her talking with Owain! They were discussing your health and the future. Libra… the arrow didn't kill you!"

"But I thought – Owain told me…"

"Well, he didn't tell you the whole story!" the cleric pouted.

"Then, what happened that would have you so upset? What took my life if it wasn't the arrow?"

"You."

"Beg pardon?"

" _You_ killed you, Libra!"

"I… I don't understand."

Lissa sighed. "According to what I heard, you committed suicide under the guise of taking a painkiller for your arrow-wound. Owain thought you mistakenly overdosed and Lucina let him believe it."

"Perhaps it was an honest mistake…" Libra began. "Owain did tell me that the wound I took in the future was quite fierce."

"We're healers, Libra – the best in the camp. We know our medications and dosages. You wouldn't have made that kind of mistake, no matter how bad the wound was. I've seen you work through pain to conserve our concoctions and staves. Also… I… I _know_ you. You're strong, but… We lost most of what and whom we loved at that point according to the stories. You remember that Lucina said that we were among the last surviving Shepherds. I think there is only so much you can take before you… _break_."

"I'd like to get to the bottom of this. We'll have a talk with Lucina and our son."

"No! No! No! They'll know I was spying on them!"

"Were you? That is very impolite."

"I wasn't… at first… I was just getting an apple from the barrel outside the tent, but I had to listen in."

"I want to speak with them."

Libra pulled on a pair of boots and put on a coat and stepped out of the tent. He strode over to Lucina's tent with Lissa behind him.

"Oh, hello Mother! Father!" Owain said in a startle.

"Is something wrong?" Lucina asked, noting Libra's sour face and Lissa's panicked look.

"Lissa tells me that she overheard you speaking... of my death… in the future."

"Ooh," Lucina said, looking down.

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop, I was just outside of the tent at the time," Lissa said.

"If what I have heard second-hand is correct," Libra said flatly, his gaze boring into his son's, "there was more to my taking a wound for you, Owain, than you let on."

"Are you sure you want to hear about it, Father?" Owain asked.

"Your mother is upset and I need to know why. I would rather know."

"You two should probably sit down," Lucina said, moving to her cot. Owain sat down on Morgan's, freeing up the chairs at the table.

Owain intertwined his fingers nervously and took on a serious air – very much unlike his usual way.

"It is alright if you wish to present it as a heroic tale, Owain," Libra said.

"No," the young man said, looking up slowly. "I need to tell it as it happened. It is.. .it is too…important."

He looked to Lissa as he shivered mildly. "The survivors fleeing Ylisstol after it fell…when we were nomads just trying to stay ahead of the Risen armies every day… we were caught in an ambush. You and Frederick were with us then and you were separated from us. We searched for weeks and began losing hope. You both found our camp, alive and well later, but it was too late for Father, then…"

Lucina looked to Libra. "You were indeed wounded saving Owain when we were ambushed," she said. "Cordelia got you to safety. You remained in our camp while some of our riders were sent out to look for Lissa and Frederick and for our other missing troops. The arrow-wound was quite bad, Uncle Libra. It went all the way through your right shoulder."

"You were taking some vulnerary for it, Father," Owain said, shaking, "but trying to conserve the stocks. The pain you were hiding must have gotten too great for you. You took some dracanodioxine and we found you on the floor of the medical tent…"

"Dracanodioxine…" Lissa said slowly, her attention as well as Libra's perked by hearing the name of a powerful painkiller and surgical anesthetic. "How much?"

"An entire vial's worth," Lucina said flatly.

Lissa gave Libra a swift smack to the face.

"Mother!" Owain cried.

Libra rubbed his jaw. "She is correct," he said. "A whole vial would only be recommended to put one under for a long procedure, with careful monitoring. That much would not be suitable merely to dull wound-pain, even for a heavy wound. Perhaps I was suffering insomnia from the pain…"

"You just made a mistake, Father." Owain said – more to try to assure himself than anything. The growing worried look he was seeing on the face of the young version of his father was making him uneasy. "You were really hurt! It was all my fault, too… I wasn't paying attention, lost in my own little world while a real hero had to come to my aid! The grievous agony of a fell injury fogged his noble mind!"

"Enough!" Libra ordered, his face even more serious than usual. "I must consider the implications of this information. Perhaps I made an honest mistake. Perhaps… I did not."

With that, Libra got up and left the tent. He pushed Lissa away when she tried to follow him.

"Father!" Owain called. He was met with silence.

Lissa began a high-pitched wail.

"He was eleven!" Lucina called. She grit her teeth. "Owain was just eleven-years old! We tried to save you, but… we couldn't. If only you thought for a moment… if only you…."

She started walking after the priest, half-angry, half-apologetic. "Libra… I'm so sorry…that I didn't see the signs…I'm a princess, I have a duty to my subjects…I…"

"Leave me be," Libra said.

"But…"

"Leave me be!"

With that, he stared straight ahead and walked to the river at the edge of the camp in the gathering gloom of the rapidly falling evening. He stood, not making a sound, just gazing outward.


	7. Widows and Orphans

**GHOST STORIES**

 **Chapter 7: Widows and Orphans**

"Freddy-Bear! Freddy-Bear is back!"

Owain awakened with a snort to the sound of Morgan shouting in happiness outside of his tent. He raised his head for a moment, his shoulders and neck aching. Every part of his body was sore. He looked around. He was on a cot. There were two other cots in the tent, both empty. His first thought was to wonder where his father had gotten off to before he realized that the bag resting next to one of the cots belonged to Lucina and one of Morgan's spell-tomes rested on the other.

He was staying in Lucina and Morgan's tent, not his own. It hadn't been a dream. His father wasn't off doing medical-work around the camp, his father was -

"Aunt Lissa!"

The sound of Lucina's voice calling out the name of his mother snapped Owain to attention.

He made haste to find his clothes and boots to pull on before he realized he had slept in them. He rubbed his dirty, disheveled hair back and ran outside. He caught sight of Frederick, dismounted and leading his horse, various weary troops behind him. His mother walked beside Frederick, carrying a staff with a cracked gem, the skirt of her dress hanging in rags off her crinoline.

Owain stood panting. He couldn't' believe his eyes. His mother was scratched and scraped a little, but was otherwise unhurt. She opened her arms to him.

"Owain!"

"Mother!"

Morgan and Lucina were hanging off Frederick, fawning over him, making sure he was uninjured.

"Yes," the knight laughed softly, "It is good to see you again, my prince and my princess!"

"We were going to move camp tomorrow," Lucina said, breathless.

"Good thing you didn't! We wouldn't have found you!" Lissa chimed.

"It was quite a difficult fight, and there were a few more battles ahead," Frederick explained. "Most of us… made it. I tracked your trail and when I sighted Cordelia's pegasus, I knew which way to lead us."

"No sign of Mother out there in the wild?" Morgan asked.

"I am afraid not, little prince," Frederick answered.

"Lissa, oh, Lissa…" Lucina said, her demeanor suddenly changing from joy to a guarded expression.

Owain hugged her tighter.

"Lucina…what's wrong?" Lissa inquired.

"It's my fault…" Owain began.

"Uncle Libra…got hurt…" Lucina began.

"Hurt? Where is he?" the blonde princess asked, eyes flying wide, immediately shifting into her healer's work-mode.

She caught Owain's gaze going to the medical tent and started running to it.

"No! Mother! Wait!" Owain pleaded.

"Lissa, don't!" Cordelia called, reaching after her. "Wait, we have to tell you something!"

Lissa slowed her steps when she beheld the interior of the medical tent. All of the cots were empty, save one, and the occupant of that cot had a sheet draped over them. Lucina, Morgan, Owain and Cordelia filed in after her, too late to stop her from carefully lifting the sheet and pulling it down over the figure's chest. She was greeted by the chalk-pale face of Libra. He was clad in his robes – clean, and armor – polished. His hair had been carefully combed and braided in the style that was customary for him. His expression was peaceful, but far too pale for him to be merely comatose.

"What?" Lissa asked desperately. She stroked his cheek, feeling the chill of his skin. "Why…why is he like this? Wh…" She started sniffling, quiet tears forming and falling down her cheeks. "He's d-d… Why is he like this? Libra….Libra? Wake up….please?"

She swallowed hard. "H…how did this happen?"

Owain sidled close to his mother and she put an arm around him. He spoke dully. "Father got hit by an arrow protecting me," he choked out.

Lissa's hand pried the body of her husband, gently inspecting beneath his outer robe, trying to find a wound she assumed was in his chest and instead finding bandaging binding his shoulder. She respectfully refastened the clothing.

"The arrow wound wasn't fatal, Aunt Lissa," Lucina explained.

"He took too much medicine for it," Owain said.

"Too…much…medicine…" Lissa repeated in a soft voice, lingering upon each word.

"Yes," Lucina said. "We found him on the floor here yesterday…um…dying…Owain and I. We tried to heal him….tried to help him, but…but…" She was cracking and bit her lip to try to keep herself together.

Lissa turned. She, Lucina and Owain bent down and huddled together in a ball of weeping.

"We were too late, Aunt Lissa!" Lucina cried. "I… I should have been a better leader…maybe I would have noticed his pain sooner and could helped him, or at least learned healing-magic lessons better!"

"He took the arrow for me!" Owain hiccupped. "I wasn't paying attention on the road and he wouldn't have been in so much pain if I had been a real hero! I shame all of our ancestors, destiny must surely reject me…"

"No…" Lissa whispered, her throat hoarse. "It's none of your fault, either of you! You are only children!"

"I… combed out his hair," Cordelia said slowly. "And Brady has tried doing sealing magic."

Lissa noticed as a glowing sigil appeared on Libra's midriff armor, just above his chest. It was different from the "Mark of Naga" sigils that she and Libra had worked on many fallen soldiers. Cordelia noticed her puzzlement over it.

"Brady tries, he really does, but you do remember who his father was. It's a Plegian symbol. The strikethrough essentially means 'Stay Dead.' It has been effective on our fallen horses. Without any other true fully-trained Ylissean-clergy healers, we did what we could."

"I'll deal with it," Lissa said, "Additional seals, I mean. If it is alright… I'd like some time alone with him."

"Can I stay, Mama?" Owain asked.

"Yes," Lissa gently answered. 

* * *

The following day, the last true priest of Naga was laid in a shallow grave, a stone cairn erected over his body and his headstone was simple – the last healing staff he'd ever used to full extent, one with a broken gem.

Camp moved out quickly, setting the last survivors of Ylisstol onto a nomadic lifestyle once again. The ensuing months edging into years consisted of staying one step ahead of the Risen bands and dragon-fire. Searches for the sacred gemstones to complete the Fire Emblem were fruitless. Lucina had in mind to lead her people to Mount Prism, one of the nexus points where the mortal world intersected with the plane of the Divine Dragon, but attempting to perform the Awakening ceremony would be fruitless without the completed Emblem.

One day, however, plans changed. Lissa had been doing some careful studying of Libra's sacred books that he had left behind. It had taken her two years of reading them faithfully on the road to decipher them. They recorded other divine nexus points, prayers and rituals by which one might beseech an audience with Naga. One of these points was in Ylisstol palace, itself, in an ancient shrine that had been built over and largely forgotten, save in all but a rare old text. Tiki was able to confirm this.

Hope flagged when it was reported that she had been slain by a mysterious figure that invaded one of her sacred settings after she had gone to attempt one of her own rituals.

Other Shepherds continued to fall. Cordelia was one of the last to go - taken by a hail of arrows while defending Morgan. Soon, all that remained of the original Shepherds were Frederick and Lissa.

"It is clear," Lucina said one morning while standing before a strategy table with the two of them and Morgan, Laurent and Owain at her side as well as a pair of trusted generals. "We have no other choice now. Lissa, if you think the summoning ritual will work, we need to retake Ylisstol."

"It's not gonna be easy," Morgan mused. "The city has become a fortress crawling with Risen. We'll need more than just us. We'll have to get in touch with the other survivor-bands….if they're still surviving. We may have to gather the last forces of Valm and Chron'sin. Our distance-riders are dwindling."

The boy paced around the war-tent table as they discussed their possibilities, nibbling at the end of his right thumb. Between that and the coat he wore, Lucina's heart felt a pang for how much he looked like Mother. He had taken upon her role, despite being far too young for such a task.

Much like herself as Exalt.

"I shall inquire of Gerome about the condition of Minerva," Laurent proposed. Laurent had been made, more or less, the official tactician of Ylisstol's survivors despite his youth, but he worked in tandem with Morgan. The more heads they had, the better, in his opinion, even it meant working with the "baby" of the Shepherds' family. Morgan had his mother's chops, just as Laurent was able to prove himself time and time again to the elder survivors.

"Do you think he can take a seaward flight?" Lucina wondered aloud. "Even at the narrowest point and without storms, even the strongest wyvern could exhaust itself."

"That's why we'll order him to scout the near-coast for any remnants of the navy or the old merchant-ships," Morgan concluded. "We'll decide what to do after that. If he cannot find any, we're essentially stuck without Valm…"

"Not an optimal condition," Laurent said.

"Gerome is one of our best fighters – as well as our friend. We aren't sending him on a suicide-mission."

"Trying to retake Ylisstol might as well be, whatever troops we can acquire" Laurent argued. "Lucina, are you sure this is the best course?"

"It is our survival, Laurent," she said darkly. "At this point, I think it is all we can do. Aunt Lissa, the texts list a ceremony for calling up a change in Time? That Naga is the goddess of Time?"

"Naga…" Lissa began, "We all know that she is not a creator-deity – but a patron of Humanity. She is connected to our family-line and her care for Humanity is why my husband kept her as his principal-god despite his general reverence for many deities. I really should have known more as a royal and a cleric, but I grew up in a palace, not an abbey. Libra would talk to me about some of the theories the Ylissean Priesthood had about the gods – and Naga. He was always one of the school who thought that the gods, her included, existed in multiple dimensions and could see different outcomes – that Fate wasn't set, but could take divergent paths."

Lissa smiled sadly. "Libra used to bore me with all of this stuff. Most of it was over my head. According to this rare text, there is a link between Naga and Time and a ritual that would be strongest at the palace." She pulled a small leather-bound booklet out of a satchel and placed it upon the war-map table. She carefully turned through pages, some of them marked on the margins with her late husband's handwriting. "He believed in it and so do I. We both knew that the Awakening was the better option, but if it is no longer something we can do, this is the next best thing. Well, if it works."

"What exactly is the ritual, Aunt Lissa?" Lucina asked.

"It involves prayer and staff-magic…the usual," Lissa answered, "but there is a specific magic-working that asks Naga to turn back Time."

"Turn back Time?"

"That sounds scientifically implausible," Laurent said.

"It sounds… insane," Frederick grumbled.

"Maybe that's what we need!" Owain piped up. "Oh, dearest Mother, do not listen to our companions! You've just hit upon the most arcane of mysterious mysteries! You're not going insane – you're just going sane in a crazy world!"

"There's a limit on it," Lissa explained. "See, right here… under the theories… under this little theology bit written by the monks, Libra added his own thoughts in red."

Lucina leaned over the book to observe. "That looks like one of my Mother's hand-written sigils… when she started writing her own modifications to Thoron…"

"It does!" Morgan agreed excitedly. "But it's light-magic, not offensive magic stuff… A kind of… written magic-prayer?"

"These symbols…" Lissa continued, "They read something along the lines of…um…. 'If the world is lost – take another path.' It's a prayer asking for Naga to turn back Time to a point where a new timeline can be forged – possibly re-writing an original timeline."

"How far back?" Lucina asked.

"If it works, nothing like ancient history or anything like that. There has to be…oh, this is hard to read! 'A connection to people the traveler knows?' So… not more than a generation back."

"Interesting," Lucina concluded. "I trust you, Aunt Lissa. I trust… Uncle Libra, too…wherever he is now. Naga had to have left some path for us."

"I say we try to take back what's ours!" Owain gave his vote. "Think about it! If it works, we can embark on the grandest of adventures – rendering space and time asunder with a mighty roar!"

Lucina was more subdued as she looked at the blighted landscape beyond the flap of the war-tent. "We can have a chance to prevent… all of this."

"It sounds…rather crazy," Frederick muttered.

Owain smiled and grabbed his mother in a hug, holding the short woman up. "Isn't sanity overrated?" he asked. "It's a one-trick pony – you only get one trick: rational thinking. But when you're good and crazy, the sky is the limit!"

"Owain, are you quite well?" Lissa asked. "Are you suffering from a headache? Do you want me to heal you?"

"I am perfectly fine." He looked to Lucina and Morgan. "I say we embrace our destiny to rewrite the past! Let's be the heroes we were born to be!"

"It looks like our last hope," Lucina concluded. "We have to try. And… even if all is lost… I want to go home again."

"We all do," Lissa said sadly. "Owain, you can let me go now."


	8. Rough Draft

**GHOST STORIES**

 **Chapter 8: Rough Draft**

"Your fury is not what is needed right now, my sweet," Maribelle said as she set her teacup down after a sip. "As much as I want to pummel his future-self for the hurt he caused you, we must remember that he and our Libra are not entirely the same."

"It's not that I'm angry," Lissa began, putting a hand up to her knotted brow, "Well, I am – but it's because I'm _scared_. He's been so withdrawn lately, more than usual, and it's all because of this… because of me!"

"Lissa, my treasure, please remain calm! We'll find a way to make this right. We need to be gentle with Libra. He is a sensitive creature."

"I wish I hadn't overheard anything."

"Well," Maribelle said matter-of-factly as she took another sip of tea, "Your son came back in time with Lucina to change things, as did mine. We all have… unfortunate knowledge… from them. The way I was told my dear Henry went out doesn't surprise me at all. What does astound me was that he was one of the first to fall."

Lissa took a shaking sip from her own teacup. "Owain told us that Libra and I ran an orphanage together. You remember – when he first met us."

Maribelle smiled sweetly. "That sounds like the two of you. I bet you were just like one of the kids."

"Hey! What does that mean?" Lissa huffed.

"I mean that with your bright smile and winsome ways that all of your adopted children probably adopted you right away. I've seen you play tag with Nowi and… let's just say… when you and Henry tag-team to prank Robin, I fear that that poor woman's life."

"I've convinced him not to summon a plague of frogs."

Maribelle laughed softly. "He might be the death of us both yet. Our men…" she sighed, "Keeping them in line feels like full-time work. Just talk to your husband."

"That's the problem, Maribelle! He moved to the medical tent and won't even make eye-contact! He turns away from me whenever I approach him and only says that he 'doesn't want to hurt me.' I'm worried that he thinks his manner of death is inevitable and that he is trying to distance himself from everyone – especially me – to try to… make it hurt less? Not everyone knows what went on, but my brother and Robin do…"

"Ah!" Maribelle said, holding up a finger. "So that's why Robin's morale-speeches have been about defying fate and there being no such thing as a written future of late."

"Aren't they always?"

"She's been enunciating certain terms more than usual."

Lissa looked down at the tea-table, another bout of sudden seriousness crossing her face.

"Owain wouldn't tell me the names of the children he grew up with – in case we meet them in this timeline. He said he had lots of brothers and sisters who were adopted out and a few who grew up with us – kids who were given happy lives because of us. I… think we know what happened to the kids we had when everything went bad. Owain hasn't spoken of searching for any siblings."

Lissa sighed deeply before continuing, "That, enough, would be a breaking point for Libra."

"Um, hmm," Maribelle concluded. "The future is not inevitable. Like Lucina keeps going on about, we have the power to change it. We need to, for Libra, those kids…and for you, my dear." 

* * *

"Father, do you have a moment? Owain asked as he came up upon Libra at the edge of camp. The tall man was seated on the ground, head slightly bowed, his eyes closed. He startled awake.

"I was… praying…" Libra answered, "But yes, I do have time."

Owain sat down next to him. "I want you to forget everything you heard, Father. Lucina and I should have guarded our conversation better. Heroes should be stealthy, acting in mysterious mystery, their past as much a shadow as their future is blazing!"

"Owain…"

"Listen, Father… secrets were revealed to you and none of them fabulous. The future… it was a blight. We had all lost so much. Lucina always said that we should not reveal too much about the future and that when we got here that naught but what was most necessary should pass our lips. In an act of carelessness, we spoke of most sensitive information. Oh, I am a fool!"

"You are not a fool, Owain," Libra replied, not meeting his gaze. "You were hurting."

The two sat in silence for several moments before Owain decided to speak again. "I watched you do funerals for your friends. I watched as you and mother put seals on bodies to keep them from becoming Risen. Mother had had big burn scars over half of her face from when she defended the orphanage under a Risen attack – but she was still the most beautiful woman in the world."

Owain choked up. "I watched you bury my siblings… And hold my little sister when she was dying… And when mother disappeared, we were both lost. Father… the gods asked too much of you."

"The gods never ask too much," Libra replied hesitantly. "They never give us more than we can handle."

Owain did not look at his father, but kept his gaze straight ahead. His voice came out dark, almost a growl, each word paused and deliberate.

"Don't. Give. Me. That. Bullshit!"

Libra turned to his future son, his eyes widening in surprise. It wasn't the blasphemy that startled him as much as Owain's demeanor. It was a darkness that wasn't play-acting.

"Owain…"

"Father, you'd survived more than most people could dream of getting through! We all did, but…but…if I were a god… at least if I were one of the good ones, I wouldn't condemn you for breaking down far sooner. I also might cast myself down from the heavens for not answering your prayers in time. I guess what I'm trying to say is…"

Owain was gesticulating with his hands at this point and looking at them like he was holding the world within them. "What I'm trying to say is that I've got this second chance with you for a reason. The future – my past – it was just a rough draft. Lucina and the rest of us came back to do a rewrite and it starts now!"

Libra was staring at Owain now. "I don't deserve you, Owain," he said.

"Of course you do!" Owain exclaimed, jumping to his feet in a victory-point. "I have the raging blood of heroes coursing through my veins – your blood! You deserve all the happiness in the world, including a faithful son who will help you to rewrite the history of the future! Unless…Unless you meant that as an insult."

"Of course not!" Libra laughed, giving him a soft smile.

Owain offered a hand out and helped him to his feet.

"You," Owain began, "My father had some sleet in his hair by the time we parted ways. He died…still too young, but his blond hair was beginning to gray just a little – like fresh fallen snow on gilt thread."

"So, I'd become a gray ghost?"

"Not by much. Father… but I want to see that sleet in your hair again."

"The enemies we have yet to face are dangerous, as always," Libra said to him as they walked back to camp, "but for what it is worth, I'll do my best to stick around and get weathered."


	9. Horror Novel

**GHOST STORIES**

 **Chapter 9: Horror Novel**

That rabbit sure could pick a lock.

Owain stretched his limbs as he watched Yarne make short work of the door to one of the old service-tunnels of the castle. Yarne was not a thief in any official manner, but he had picked up his father's lessons easily. His sensitive Taguel's ears were perfect for listening to the tumblers in a lock.

Their group was taking the sneaky way and Yarne was still subtly shivering, his robust hair standing on end. Owain, for his part, bragged that he should be leading the frontal assault at the gates with Sir Frederick, but his mother would have none of that. It had been hard enough for her to let Frederick go. A distraction was necessary, but everyone – Frederick most of all – knew that this was to be his final mission.

"Aren't we supposed to wait for Lucina?" Noire said, clutching her bow close and huddling close to Yarne.

Just then, the flap of leather wings and large animal-feet hitting the ground drew the party's attention. Gerome helped Lucina off of Minerva. The latter was wearing the mask the former had given her. Owain guessed by the paleness of her face that his cousin did not want anyone to see her eyes right now.

"Yer all scraped up, let me see you," Brady groused.

"No time," Lucina said. "We have to hurry. Grima is coming."

Everyone gasped.

"He's coming. I think he knows our plan somehow… I don't know how…"

"Then we'd best move," Laurent concluded. "Come, Morgan, you, too. I promise we'll find your mother."

Morgan remained silent and moved close to Lucina. The boy was confused and seemed tired. Lucina had found him merely days before on their way here, unconscious in a field, wrapped in his beloved coat inherited from their lost mother and clutching, of all things, a dark magic tome – one that none of their mages or even Noire recognized. He hadn't the foggiest who any of them were, but Lucina had managed to convince him to trust them.

Morgan had disappeared about a year ago. Just as the last survivor-bands were gathering under the leadership of "Marth" to retake Ylisstol, the boy had made claims to having visions of his mother. Investigations turned up nothing and, for a while, the Second Shepherds worried that he was going mad. Lucina awoke to a lonely tent one morning and they had been searching for him ever since. The worst had been assumed: That he'd taken off into the night following after his delusions and had bypassed all of the guards and soldiers in camp due to his notoriously devious ways. It was believed – lastly by Lucina – that he had met with an ill fate.

It still seemed probable that he had met with an ill fate, just not one that had been expected. He was not a Risen nor had he been consumed by Risen, but the lack of memories and the book he'd been found with (which had been discarded) were evidence that he had, perhaps, been enslaved and perhaps even used and brainwashed by the remnants of the Grimleal. Lucina worried that he had been tortured. Noire worried that he would turn on them the moment some sound, scent or magic gave him a "trigger."

Owain hoped that maybe the interior of Ylisstol Castle would trigger Morgan to remember something. As they filed into the tunnel, it certainly triggered memories in him. The air was musty, mold-scented, but these were halls that he had played in when visiting his cousins. He remembered bothering castle cook-staff, inspecting their food supplies for "demons of devious deliciousness."

They kept their footsteps light and he walked in front of his mother, ready to protect her at a moment's notice. Risen could pop up anywhere. He knew these halls well, almost as well as his mother did. Lucina kept the front position. Everyone was wary and peered around corners into the deep shadows. Lucina gave a signal and they entered a room that was humid and rife with a green stink – the old baths. Most of the pools were dry, but a few retained moisture and slick growths of algae. Owain wistfully remembered water-fights with Morgan and his uncle yelling to stop running around the pool because they'd both slip and break their heads. He also remembered that story his mother used to love telling about Uncle Chrom almost drowning before Aunt Emmeryn saved him. Now the heating pits were cold, the room dark and algal blooms were growing upon the walls and pillars.

The young swordsman immediately stiffened and drew his blade upon hearing a sharp pop and wheeze. A slow, high pitched sound filled the room as he realized his errant foot had found an old bath-toy. The duck smiled up at him with a misshapen bill and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

… Before they saw red eyes shining in the dark. Owain jumped as a fireball smote itself out on the tiles by his feet. A swordsman rushed for him only to be blocked upon Kjelle's armor as she came to his aid.

Laurent shouted positions and everyone fell in, back-to-back and side-by-side. Noire knocked back arrows while Yarne looked for room in one of the dry pools to transform. Nah did likewise, careful not to accidentally breathe on her friends in the enclosed space.

Why hadn't they smelled them? Owain wondered why the algae had covered up the usual Risen-stink. He thrust a sword through an ax-fighter's chest and coughed from the powder it immediately sent up as it disintegrated. These were old Risen – dried out, wizened corpses.

One wearing ragged chef's clothes came after him with a vegetable-knife. Lucina came up beside him and they exchanged a look of horror. Some of these Risen used to be people they knew – palace-staff – the very people who used to serve her and whom he and Morgan used to play pranks on.

As it was, there was some small mercy that, at this point, they couldn't recognize any of them. The Risen they were fighting were too decayed, too mummified.

The melee ended without any significant injury to any of the living. They moved on, hoping the commotion hadn't drawn attention in the floors above. They entered an exited a storage-basement without incident.

Lucina's nose caught the leather and paper scent of old books as they wended their way down a corridor. Owain noticed Morgan looking at her – an exchanged glance that spoke of one thing: One of the castle libraries, probably still mostly intact. Owain's senses caught it, too. It smelled like Robin. He suppressed a shiver. No one knew where his aunt was now. The most prevalent running-theory was that she had been made into a sacrifice for the world-eater on their tail, meaning that her very soul had probably been destroyed as the magic was ripped from her body – but no one had knew what had happened to her, and given the circumstances, her tactical skills were sorely-missed even by the survivors of Ylisse who had never known her personally.

"Alright, the old sealed-off areas should be just ahead," his mother said, leading the way with a book in hand, turned to a map. She knew this palace inside and out, even better than any of the rest of them did, having had a longer childhood here, however, the place that they were looking for was a long-lost area, an area that she had never played in. It hadn't been forbidden (if it had, she would have known about it since she could walk) – but merely forgotten. Lissa had known that there was some kind of a shrine that had gone unused for a long time and had been walled-up, but hadn't known anything further. The shrine-proper that the Exalted family had used during her lifetime and throughout her father's lifetime and her grandfather's before that was up a floor and nearer the Throne Room. There were a few old areas of the place, as with most castles – early barracks, ancient dungeons and other areas that had either been repurposed for abandoned altogether.

Owain noticed something that he was not sure the others had noticed – at least not until he had gotten a good look at the uneasy face of Yarne. He'd probably picked up on it before he had. The young swordsman exchanged a glance with his cousin. Lucina seemed to feel it, too.

"Thum-dom-click" went their steps, even though they were treading softly. There was an echo in these halls against the silence surrounding them. It was this silence that Owain had begun to notice.

Earlier, their small band of "Second Shepherds" and Lissa had been engaged in a fight to get here, slipping through lines of Risen while soldiers and common Ylisseans alike who had joined the fight for the world cut a path for them. Even as they had slipped though the muddy training yards and stables to get in through the back and bottom, the din and drone of battle elsewhere in and around the castle had remained a constant. Even as they had distanced themselves from it, it had become a low-level sound, like the white noise of falling snow.

It was absent.

The plan was to find a way to beseech Naga to turn back Time. Lucina had designs on bringing all of the survivors into the other time – if that is how time-reversal even worked.

With each strangely-noticeable noise of footsteps as they were trying to pad gently one message became increasingly clear: Their little group was the last.

Lucina had always held out hope that the remaining survivor-bands she'd gathered for the siege were not the only people left in the world – that somewhere, far off, perhaps in some forgotten mountain reach of Regna Ferox or deep in the Plegian desert there were people who hadn't heard the call.

At the very least, here and now, the Second Shepherds and Lissa were subject to the bitter quiet.

They exited out into a broken dining hall – once used to greet dignitaries and to hold important conferences. It was littered with bodies. The scent of death, both fresh and stale, was rife.

"Frederick?" Lissa called. She rushed to a heavy-armored man frozen in a crouched position, pinned upon a spear that had been driven through his chest with enough force to bypass the protection of his plate and to find a weak point.

"No, no, no…" she said, taking her staff off her back. She touched the face of her former caretaker and brushed a gently-closed eye with her thumb. He wasn't getting back up. Although he was in an awkward position, a healer could see that he was far too pale and was already beginning to stiffen.

"Dear Naga, take another hero fallen," Owain began to pray. "Show him to the gates and let him be reborn as a mighty fire…"

Lucina tugged on his sleeve, which brought him to attention. A hiss broke the peace. One of the numerous bodies shambled upright, sword in hand.

Among the dust of the long-dead Risen the freshly-killed took to their feet. The living took fighting positions.

"There is no hope of taking them all," Laurent deduced, throwing up a wind spell to drive an icy gale into one of Owain's attackers. Owain blocked an axe-blow aimed at Lucina's head and took a protective stance in front of Morgan, who shouted out a thunder spell to defend him in kind. "Our best chance is to cut a path and run."

"I'll pick up and carry any stragglers!" Kjelle volunteered.

"Morgan, come with me," Laurent ordered. "We're going to break wind- "

Normally, Owain would have cracked a smile at such unfortunate wording and would have had to explain the joke to Lucina later, but now was not the time.

"- and then we're going to break out the Arcfire and send this place up."

Lucina nodded. "Frederick…would want it that way," she mused.

"Fighters, assemble!" Owain shouted as he supported Nah, who had found no room to transform and was trying her best with a hastily-picked-up spear. Yarne offered her a ride on his back – there had been just enough time before the Risen were upon them for a Taguel-transformation, but there was no wing-room for a dragon.

As wind whipped through the room, however, Owain thought that he saw evidence for another type of dragon being far too near. A small black feather passed briefly before his nose as Laurent prepared a way.

As he was running for the dining room's exit with the others, Owain felt something fall out of his pocket. He skidded back to get it, but Severa grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him forward.

"What are you doing, you fool?"

"Father!" Owain cried, trying to loose himself from his friend's grasp.

She gave him a puzzled, angry look. "Are you seeing one of your delusional visions again? He's dead! And you'll be if you don't come on!"

The object that had fallen from Owain's pocket was the last surviving sketchbook of his father's. It was all he had left of him, save for the painting he had on him that he had not dropped. Libra had just done a few stray doodles in that one – some nature-studies, a few imaginary creatures, a few sketches of real animals and people – one picture of Lissa in profile, showing her facial-burns. Most of the pages were empty, but the pages that were filled Owain treasured more than his blade.

Severa kept her grip on him and Kjelle grabbed him by the waist as Laurent and Morgan's fire swept through the hall. Owain watched helplessly as the leather binding on the little book cracked and pages curled into black ashes.

A figure loomed up behind the fire-wall, red gaze shining through it. He pulled the spear from his body, but did not pursue them. He rumpled over in a hiss.

"We're so sorry, Frederick." Lucina said solemnly. Lissa gazed onward, her hand on Owain's shoulder as he knelt in the entranceway.

"Get up, honey, we have go," she said to him.

"Yes, Mother," Owain replied dully, his heroic speeches sapped from him for the time being.

They never knew if the Risen-of-Frederick never tried to pursue them because it was too injured or if some semblance of the man had been left in him – just enough to grant them a mercy. 

* * *

"What do you mean a 'mortal anchor?" Lucina inquired as they stood before a gate of light resembling a great blue eye.

Owain had never heard Naga's voice before – at least not physically. His father had taught him to be guided by love – and that the sense of justice that he had in his heart essentially was the Will of Naga.

It was a different experience hearing the voice of a dragon-god directly, in a physical manner. At least, this was the voice she used with mortals, he guessed. Perhaps her "true voice" would shred them all across space-time, rendering them into nanoparticles continually searching for a home.

None of them saw the Dragon in full. There was a subtle glow that lit up the sigils on the floor and walls of the forgotten temple that his mother had channeled white-magic into. Lissa was exhausted, kneeling before an array holding her staff out before her. Owain knelt behind her and held her by the shoulders, worried and ready to pick her up should she lose consciousness.

The atmosphere in the shrine was eerie. The air carried the smell of wet stone and the scent of sealing. No animal or human breath had touched this place for decades, perhaps centuries, although there were little sprigs of grass and moss in the cracks of the stones, living on what little bit of light got in through pinpricks in the decaying wall-masonry.

Noire looked up warily – seemingly less afraid of the Voice of the Dragon than she was of the walls and ceiling of the shrine collapsing in on them.

The lights in the chamber, which pulsed whenever Naga had a word, lit up the dust motes. Owain thought it looked vaguely like fireflies on a summer night.

"My power is fading in this world," Naga said, her voice carrying sorrow. "Grima has won."

"No…please…no," Lucina mourned.

"Therein rests a chance in Time," Naga answered. "You have always carried hope, young Exalt. Do not give it up."

"So, you can send us back…"

"We did it, Lucina," Lissa said with a smile.

Owain wanted to ask Naga about his father's spirit. He sensed that his mother wished to do the same. Their thoughts were rudely interrupted.

The growls of Risen came from the outside halls. Scraping against wooden barricades and the old doors told the group that they'd gotten into the inner sanctum and were near.

"I am afraid that one of you must stay and anchor the magic to keep the Gate stabilized," Naga's voice intoned.

"How? How can you make us choose that?!" Lucina demanded.

"It is not a choice I would have you make if it could be avoided," Naga answered, "it is simple fact. I am not a creator. I do not have the power to truly create or to destroy. Soon, I will have no more influence in this world. At present, I must borrow a mortal vessel in order to enable you to change this outcome."

"Alright, I'll do it," Lissa said, getting to her feet.

"No! Mother! I'll stay behind! It's what heroes do-"

"I'll be damned if I lose you, Owain!" Lissa shot back at him. "I am your mother. I am supposed to protect you, not the other way around! Your father is gone. I would not live very long having lost you, too! This is my duty as the senior princess, Owain. Big Brother Chrom and Big Sister Emm… It is my time to follow them."

"No," Owain said, shaking his head, tears flowing.

She gave him a soft smile. "You do me proud, Owain. I know you'll save me. You're going to go on an adventure with Lucina and save me, your father and everyone else." She sniffled. "I'm blessed to have such a brave son. Now go. Me staying behind… it is the most logical decision. I'm the only one with enough white-magic to make this work. I'm also pretty sure that if some younger version of me saw me, she'd totally freak out and have a heart-attack, and who knows what would happen? Time might wrap around until it became a pair of ducks!"

Owain smiled as she wiped a tear from his cheek. "Paradox of paradoxes!" he said, "What would the mighty Owain Dark be if he let the world unravel because of such a dire, calamitous happening?"

"I love you, honey."

"I promise I will find you in the other time," Owain said, "You and Father and Chrom and I won't let any of this happen! By the mighty sword, Missletain, you shall be avenged!"

Owain felt himself being pulled back to the Gate as his mother's staff glowed and she gazed onward. He reached out to touch her face and his hand fell as the blue-light of the Gate bathed him.

"Farewell. May we meet again in a better life."

"Mother…Mother!"


	10. Rewritten

**GHOST STORIES**

 **Chapter 10: Rewritten**

"Jasmine… Chamomile…Pain! Ecstasy!"

Owain flailed in his cot, his sword-hand reflexively shielding his eyes from the morning light.

"This can only be…the Den of Mysteries!"

"Wake up, honey," the sweet, soft voice of Lissa said beside him. "You're just dreaming." She sipped some tea and set her cup upon a bedside table.

"Huh? What?" Owain snorted as he got his bearings. He was stiff and felt the distinct soreness of freshly-cut and mended skin as well as a lump on the back of his head.

"Watch yourself!" – The concerned voice of his father.

Owain sniffed, taking in the smells of antiseptic, medicine and blood as well as the different types of tea that his parents had been drinking.

"I was bested in battle? Unthinkable! Surely, the Hero of the Ages is without equal! Yet… death does not wrap me in its shroud…"

"You took some fierce wounds," Libra informed him, "but you shall be just fine. You were not the only one injured, but everyone else has been treated and released. You've been asleep for a night and a day."

A memory flashed through Owain's mind of where he'd last been standing. A fell wind was blowing, black, smoky and with a cold that felt like it was sheering through his bones. He'd been supporting his father, a sword to balance out a battleaxe. They were on the back of a dragon the size of a landmass. Lucina was ahead of them with Morgan. Their parents and his mother were further ahead. Owain last remembered smelling magic and blocking a sword strike from one of Grima's faithful aimed at his father's head and then the feeling that something was behind him…

Owain sat up. "Where's Aunt Robin?" he asked.

Libra put an arm around Lissa and drew her close to him.

Lissa put her hands over her face and cried. 

* * *

Over the previous months, the Shepherds had learned the bitter truth about Robin. Lucina had always held some suspicions that she'd desperately hoped were not true. She remembered a loving mother, after all, just as Owain remembered a smart and kind aunt. Despite some of her history – that which they'd known about in their own timeline of her being a childhood refugee from the Grimleal – they'd never suspected that she was actually Grima incarnate.

They'd long suspected she was a victim - but not that.

At least, it had not been Robin's fault. She was not a willing host – but she could be held in sway by whatever essence of Grima her father, Validar, could wield.

Owain had allowed Lucina to cry upon his shoulder until she taxed herself and fell asleep on him the evening after she'd almost killed her mother. This was a family-secret. Chrom had broken up the near-assassination-attempt and the facts of it were shared only with Owain (by Lucina, who needed someone to talk to who wasn't Morgan) and, by-necessity, to his parents. They'd had to heal a cut on Robin – an indecisive strike when Lucina had tried to go in for the kill and had pulled back, unable to fell her mother. Apparently, Robin had just stood there, awaiting execution. The Exalted family told none of the rest of the Shepherds what had transpired, although they were sure that they had all guessed, due to the tension among the family. They had all seen Robin become possessed. They had seen Robin turn over the Fire Emblem to Validar.

They'd later gotten it back, due to a plan she had hatched and she had slain Validar herself, severing herself from shared-blood. However, the Robin that Owain had known in childhood had followed the Second Shepherds into the past, fully-possessed and had brought the Grima of the current timeline into wakefulness using the souls of hordes of brainwashed Plegians who had been called to the Dragon's Table and the willing Grimleal who had brainwashed the innocent citizens. Grima, perhaps, was not as strong in this time as in their own time, given the displacement caused by time-travel and the fact that the current timeline's Robin had held fast and had not given in to possession.

Chrom survived the day he was slated to die. History had not repeated itself.

After surviving some heavy battles later in a scramble for the shrine at Mount Prism, a choice had been laid before the Shepherds, Robin in particular. Once he had passed Naga's test and was bequeathed the Exalted Falchion, Chrom was enabled to do his duty to send Grima back into a thousand-year slumber should he strike the dragon down. Robin, on the other hand, could use her position as Grima's mortal-anchor to destroy him forever: At the cost of her existence.

Owain remembered when he'd heard the voice of Naga in this time handing down this verdict. The Shepherds had seen a manifestation of Naga – all of them, including his father. Libra had fallen to his knees, of course, but his joy upon meeting his patron-goddess in person while remaining alive was quickly dampened at the thought of losing his sister-in-law and great friend.

The Shepherds had divided feelings as to what was to be done and argued among themselves heavily. None of them wanted to lose Robin and they spoke of how another rise of Grima could be prevented within a thousand-year timeframe. Some of them – everyone from the future who had remembered what Grima could do to the world first-hand voiced thoughts that a sacrifice might be the best thing, even if a potential cruel future was to be far-flung. Lucina was the most torn-up about this. She did not want to lose her mother again, but did not want even the furthest-reach of the future to face what they had faced. The fact that she'd even considered her mother's sacrifice put Morgan off of talking to her.

In the end, however, it was Robin's decision.

Naga had spoken of hope for Robin's return – if the connections to the hearts of her companions were strong enough in her, if she was anchored enough in the mortal world in order to keep her mortal self – she could return to them, however, the Divine Dragon warned that separating "Robin" from the grasp of "Grima" would be improbable. Even as "Grima redeemed," Robin's body was the physical aspect of the Fell Dragon. The most likely outcome of her destroying Grima with her own power would be her death – and possibly the dissolution of her spirit entirely.

Robin, herself, tried to appear stoic in the weeks leading up to the final battle. The Shepherds built up their strength and chased Grima down to where Naga could hold him for a limited time. Everyone could see the small cracks in her mask, however, the contemplation in her eyes. She never gave them a firm answer or a promise not to strike the final blow, but lead Chrom to believe that he'd get the killing blow, should they even get that far in the battle. It was very likely that none of them were coming back from fighting Grima itself.

The mission of the Shepherds once Naga had transported them to the Fell Dragon's back was to get Chrom to the front – to Robin's other self on the back of the beast's neck: Lucina's true mother and Owain's true aunt, but only her body at this point. The woman who was – was either long gone, the spirit dissolved – or perhaps trapped inside somewhere deep inside, in need of a freedom that could only come through death.

Owain was certain that he'd heard Chrom screaming as the sword-hilt of an enemy pummeled the back of his head and darkness took him.

After waking up in the tent in camp he learned that Robin had gotten to the front with Chrom and upon wounding Grima's vessel, she'd struck ahead of him, her decision made.

Aunt Robin was gone.

As soon as the wounded young man was able to stand and exit the tent, Chrom gathered everyone for a speech. The Shepherds' camp overlooked a valley where the remains of Grima had fallen – the bones having de-fleshed as both versions of the soul had vanished. Gazing out sadly next to his mother and father, Owain spared a glance for Lucina and Morgan as they all listened to Chrom pontificate – as stoic as ever, keeping the voice of a leader.

Keeping his voice from cracking.

Owain edged his way even closer to his parents as the speech went on, knowing that the family – and all of the Shepherds – needed each other more than ever in this moment.

His mother vowed to search every field in the world for Robin in hopes of her return. His father prayed for her to find light in the darkness. Owain struck a pose and proclaimed that the hero would return – and that she was, greater than even he at his best and, he suspected, a greater hero than he would ever be.

The Shepherds celebrated the defeat of Grima – forever, but also mourned Robin. Before the long journey back to Ylisstol, there were both toasts and tears. 

* * *

Two years later found Owain hammering nails into the framework of what was to become a large house. His father was close by, working on another portion of the framing-timbers, dressed in workman's clothes with his hair unbraided and pulled into a long tail behind his back. Owain had honestly never seen him look so masculine and deemed it a good look on him, at least as long as he was unwilling to trim his hair. The man was always going to look androgynous, no matter what he did with himself, but he got closer to a model of "manliness" in some moments.

Owain found it interesting to be working on building the home that he was born and raised in another life ago. He had been one of the Second Shepherds who had stayed behind in the Ylisstol area. Many of his friends had gone off on personal journeys. Various members of the original Shepherds had broken up to go to their respective homes and homelands. Virion had gone back to Rosanne. Henry and Tharja were somewhere in Plegia. Tiki had gone to her mountain and Sar'yi had gone back to Chron'sin. The future-children were moving on with their lives in this timeline – unable to "go home" again. No one knew if their original timeline even existed anymore or if it had been absorbed into a void. Owain actively wondered if the souls of his past had somehow merged with the souls of their selves in the present time – and if truly, everyone he'd lost now lived.

As it was, his friends were off doing various things. Brady was playing to packed houses and apparently scaring the bejabbers out of audiences with some of his dark, apocalyptic concertos as well as his face (the poor sap). Yarne was actively trying to find romance because he wanted to get started on having "lots of children" as soon as possible. Inigo was reportedly doing likewise, children optional. Laurent and Morgan were investigating historical sites and ruins. Some had stayed behind. Cynthia had integrated herself into the Pegasus Knights. Severa and Kjelle were training for the palace guard.

Lucina surprised everyone by staying in Ylisstol for the time being, although she planned to travel. She had been insistent throughout their mission that she did not want to interfere with the upbringing of her current-timeline twin-self, nor did she want to invite a scandal, but it had become clear to her that her father needed support after losing the queen. She made sure that she was not seen outside the palace-grounds without the masked guise of "Marth" and presented herself to the public as a servant-advisor and a distant relative whose birth-records had been lost. Everyone knew that this story would not hold up as soon as information about the battle with Grima slowly became declassified. Eventually, everyone would know that there was an alternate future that had been averted, a new timeline created.

Owain wasn't going to stay behind forever. He had new adventures to get to and new lands to travel to. He felt wanderlust nipping at his heels. He also felt that he couldn't stay for reasons that would present themselves as obvious in times to come.

"Haven't you considered staying with us?" his father asked after finishing a nail. "Your mother and I would be glad to have you. Once the home is finished, we will, no doubt, need all of the help we can get with the little ones."

"No, Dad, I really do think I should go. I'll visit sometimes… it's just… What happens when you and mother celebrate the portentous birth of the hero of this age – my tiny self, Owain the Younger?"

"Hmm," Libra muttered. "Are you so sure we will have you again? Specific traits that people are born with happen due to a number of circumstances and it is all very time-sensitive. The mix of myself and your mother that generated you may not be present in a child in this timeline, but a different mix. We may even have a daughter instead of a son."

"I hadn't considered that," Owain replied. "So, she shall be Owainia! Heroine of the Ages!"

Libra smiled. "We need some time, in any case."

"You may use my name," Owain said. "I have been thinking of trying out a different moniker – just for traveling and to blend in to the stealthy shadows! I would die if some miscreant uncovered my secret identity after my great deeds and came after my family because of it…"

"Owain… focus. You just almost hit your thumb with the hammer."

"Oh, right. In any case, Father… I am actually not sure I can stay here. I am plagued with certain memories that are bound to synch up with events in this timeline in ways most vexing. When the younger this-world versions of my past siblings come along… I am just not sure how I am going to be able to handle that. I still… think of ghosts."

"I understand," Libra responded, setting another nail where it needed to be. "Your mother and I don't know them yet; all things are new for us."

Owain sighed softly and smiled. Birds chirped in the fields and trees around them. It was a wonderful spring day and the air was scented with grass and wildflowers. The young man watched his father work and resumed his own, regretful that the birdsong had to be drowned out, however temporarily, by the harsher sounds of construction. Friends had been helping to build the orphanage. Libra had cleared the project with Chrom, citing the unfortunate need to de-burden the overpopulation of the area's existing orphanages after the wars. It was what he and Lissa agreed that they wanted to do. Owain wondered in the coming years if they would plant more, should there be a need – and perhaps expand to schools and other services for youth. In this timeline, it could happen. The world had a future here. It was alive – and more than that. Owain felt like he was living in a world that had been resurrected.

The ghost stories had been rewritten into a tale of life.

"When do you think Mom's going to get back?"

"It could be some time," Libra said. "She was going all the way to Southtown with Lord Chrom and Sir Frederick and who knows if they decided to take an extra night at the inn."

"Yoo hoo!"

Owain and Libra paused, attention caught by a chipper voice and booted footsteps.

"Speak of the devil…" Libra laughed.

"Ah, my most punctual mother!" Owain pronounced. "How fared you on your latest adventure?"

Lissa's eyes were alight. "Ooh, it was amazing! Come on! Come on! I've got something to show you!"

She grabbed her husband by the wrist so hard he almost spun and pulled him forward. "Come on, Owain! Hurry!"

"What in the wide world has gotten you all aflutter, Mother?" Owain asked, "Have you brought back a haunted souvenir of Fate?"

"You'll never guess who we found! Or, maybe you will, but we found 'em!" 

* * *

**END.**


End file.
